Items Tagged: Fibre+Channel
Cisco MDS
We’ve seen a rapid evolution in SAN fabric switching technologies in the past 18 months. The entire switching category is exploding with more intelligent, flexible, and scalable fabric architectures. Enterprises are very keen to get their hands on real-time fabric management tools, virtual abstraction capabilities, and multi-protocol support, to name just a few advances. Why? Because these technologies are central to establishing significant SAN ROI.
QLogic Introduces Innovative Adapter Portfolio for Next-Generation Storage and Data Networks
Versatile Design Powers Both Native 16Gb Fibre Channel and 10Gb Ethernet Converged Networks With Features Optimized for Virtualized and Cloud Computing Environments
- Premiered: 09/28/11
- Author: Taneja Group
- Published: GlobeNewswire.com
Independent Research Confirms QLogic FabricCache Delivers...
QLogic, the market share leader in Fibre Channel adapters, today announced the industry's first caching SAN adapter, FabricCache(TM), directly addresses customer preferences for enterprise application acceleration technologies, according to the recent multi-client study by Taneja Group.
- Premiered: 07/30/13
- Author: Taneja Group
- Published: WSJ Online
QLogic Corporation : QLogic Discusses Future of Server-Based Caching at Flash Memory Summit
Cameron T. Brett, director of solutions marketing at QLogic, will present on the impact of caching SAN adapters on the future of application performance acceleration at Flash Memory Summit.
- Premiered: 08/08/13
- Author: Taneja Group
- Published: 4-Traders
QLogic Enhances Integration for Fibre Channel in VMware vSphere 5.5
Industry Leader in Fibre Channel Adapters and Caching SAN Adapters Introduces VMware Native Driver Support and New Web-Based Version of QLogic QConvergeConsole Plug-in for VMware vCenter Server.
- Premiered: 08/26/13
- Author: Taneja Group
- Published: The Wall Street Journal
FC technology use still leads despite Ethernet nipping at its heels
At least two technologies have tried to overtake Fibre Channel (FC) in the past decade: Ethernet and InfiniBand. Both have failed and FC use continues unabated. Why is that happening, and what's the future of FC?
- Premiered: 04/08/14
- Author: Arun Taneja
- Published: Tech Target: Search Storage
Ethernet advances haven't pushed FC SANs into retirement
Storage networking has proven to be the exception to the adage, "Ethernet always wins," and it's unlikely to change soon. Ethernet has made inroads in storage, but Fibre Channel (FC) SANs remain the performance leader, and will stick around for the foreseeable future with 16 Gbps FC adoption growing and 32 Gbps FC on the horizon.
- Premiered: 04/29/14
- Author: Taneja Group
- Published: Tech Target: Search Storage
Dell strikes OEM deal with Nutanix to sell hyper-converged storage
Dell today revealed plans to resell Nutanix hyper-converged storage software on Dell hardware, launched an entry-level Compellent SAN array and disclosed a multi-year plan to integrate its Compellent and EqualLogic platforms.
- Premiered: 06/24/14
- Author: Taneja Group
- Published: Tech Target: Search Storage
Fibre Channel: The Proven and Reliable Workhorse for Enterprise Storage Networks
Mission-critical assets such as virtualized and database applications demand a proven enterprise storage protocol to meet their performance and reliability needs. Fibre Channel has long filled that need for most customers, and for good reason. Unlike competing protocols, Fibre Channel was specifically designed for storage networking, and engineered to deliver high levels of reliability and availability as well as consistent and predictable performance for enterprise applications. As a result, Fibre Channel has been the most widely used enterprise protocol for many years.
But with the widespread deployment of 10GbE technology, some customers have explored the use of other block protocols, such as iSCSI and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), or file protocols such as NAS. Others have looked to Infiniband, which is now being touted as a storage networking solution. In marketing the strengths of these protocols, vendors often promote feeds and speeds, such as raw line rates, as a key advantage for storage networking. However, as we’ll see, there is much more to storage networking than raw speed.
It turns out that on an enterprise buyer’s scorecard, raw speed doesn’t even make the cut as an evaluation criteria. Instead, decision makers focus on factors such as a solution’s demonstrated reliability, latency, and track record in supporting Tier 1 applications. When it comes to these requirements, no other protocol can measure up to the inherent strengths of Fibre Channel in enterprise storage environments.
Despite its long, successful track record, Fibre Channel does not always get the attention and visibility that other protocols receive. While it may not be winning the media wars, Fibre Channel offers customers a clear and compelling value proposition as a storage networking solution. Looking ahead, Fibre Channel also presents an enticing technology roadmap, even as it continues to meet the storage needs of today’s most critical business applications.
In this paper, we’ll begin by looking at the key requirements customers should look for in a commercial storage protocol. We’ll then examine the technology capabilities and advantages of Fibre Channel relative to other protocols, and discuss how those translate to business benefits. Since not all vendor implementations are created equal, we’ll call out the solution set of one vendor – QLogic – as we discuss each of the requirements, highlighting it as an example of a Fibre Channel offering that goes well beyond the norm.
Redefining Storage Operations with VMware Virtual SAN
Virtual Machines much like physical ones require storage. Storage, on all its forms, is exponentially growing in recent years – almost doubling every other year. With the explosion of storage demands, IT managers are challenged to deliver the same service levels to virtual environments as they do with physical ones.
- Premiered: 08/08/14
- Author: Taneja Group
- Published: VMware Blogs
Software-defined Storage and VMware's Virtual SAN Redefining Storage Operations
The massive trend to virtualize servers has brought great benefits to IT data centers everywhere, but other domains of IT infrastructure have been challenged to likewise evolve. In particular, enterprise storage has remained expensively tied to a traditional hardware infrastructure based on antiquated logical constructs that are not well aligned with virtual workloads – ultimately impairing both IT efficiency and organizational agility.
Software-Defined Storage provides a new approach to making better use of storage resources in the virtual environment. Some software-defined solutions are even enabling storage provisioning and management on an object, database or per-VM level instead of struggling with block storage LUN’s or file volumes. In particular, VM-centricity, especially when combined with an automatic policy-based approach to management, enables virtual admins to deal with storage in the same mindset and in the same flow as other virtual admin tasks.
In this paper, we will look at VMware’s Virtual SAN product and its impact on operations. Virtual SAN brings both virtualized storage infrastructure and VM-centric storage together into one solution that significantly reduces cost compared to a traditional SAN. While this kind of software-defined storage alters the acquisition cost of storage in several big ways (avoiding proprietary storage hardware, dedicated storage adapters and fabrics, et.al.) here at Taneja Group what we find more significant is the opportunity for solutions like VMware’s Virtual SAN to fundamentally alter the on-going operational (or OPEX) costs of storage.
In this report, we will look at how Software-Defined Storage stands to transform the long term OPEX for storage by examining VMware’s Virtual SAN product. We’ll do this by examining a representative handful of key operational tasks associated with enterprise storage and the virtual infrastructure in our validation lab. We’ll examine the key data points recorded from our comparative hands-on examination, estimating the overall time and effort required for common OPEX tasks on both VMware Virtual SAN and traditional enterprise storage.
NetApp makes single-node FlashRay systems available
NetApp says select customers can buy its FlashRay all-flash array, which includes inline dedupe and compression but is still a one-node configuration.
- Premiered: 09/17/14
- Author: Taneja Group
- Published: Tech Target: Search Solid State Storage
Hadoop Storage Options: Time to Ditch DAS?
Hadoop is immensely popular today because it makes big data analysis cheap and simple: you get a cluster of commodity servers and use their processors as compute nodes to do the number crunching, while their internal direct attached storage (DAS) operate as very low cost storage nodes.
- Premiered: 02/19/15
- Author: Taneja Group
- Published: Infostor
Five key VMware VVOLs takeaways
The highly anticipated VMware Virtual Volumes feature is now available, and increasing vendor support is expected over the next 18 months.
- Premiered: 03/20/15
- Author: Arun Taneja
- Published: TechTarget: Search Virtual Storage
Prepare for VMware VVOLs and how they will change storage products
The benefits of VMware VVOLs are vast and unquestioned. But most IT shops are struggling to deal with how they are changing today's storage products.
- Premiered: 04/03/15
- Author: Arun Taneja
- Published: TechTarget: Search Virtual Storage
Infinidat comes out of stealth with PB-scale InfiniBox, funding grab
Moshe Yanai's newest venture launches its InfiniBox hyperscale storage array and says it already has close to 100 customers.
- Premiered: 04/29/15
- Author: Taneja Group
- Published: TechTarget: Search Storage
What storage problems can vSphere Virtual Volumes solve?
VSphere VVOLs allow virtual administrators to self-provision a pool of storage as they see fit.
- Premiered: 04/28/15
- Author: Taneja Group
- Published: TechTarget: Search Virtual Storage
Nutanix Acropolis hypervisor aimed at rival VMware
Nutanix adds Acropolis, a native hypervisor that can work alongside of or replace VMware and Microsoft hypervisors in a hyper-converged box.
- Premiered: 06/09/15
- Author: Taneja Group
- Published: TechTarget: Search Virtual Storage
Hyperconverged storage challenges the SAN paradigm
HCI makes local storage cool again -- and it keeps pace with how VMs access and store data better than some traditional storage architectures.
- Premiered: 06/16/15
- Author: Taneja Group
- Published: TechTarget: Search Data Center
Hyperconverged systems prove viable SAN alternative
Why are IT pros looking to hyperconverged offerings? The architecture and skills required for SANs are some reasons.
- Premiered: 06/16/15
- Author: Taneja Group
- Published: TechTarget: Search Data Center