Category: Storage Networking

Optimizing NVMe over Fabrics Performance with Different Ethernet Transports: Host Factors

Tom Friend
NVMe over Fabrics technology is gaining momentum and getting more traction in data centers, but there are three kinds of Ethernet based NVMe over Fabrics transports: iWARP, RoCEv2 and TCP. How do we optimize NVMe over Fabrics performance with different Ethernet transports? That will be the discussion topic at our SNIA Networking Storage Forum Webcast, “Optimizing NVMe over Fabrics Performance with Different Ethernet Transports: Host Factors” on September 16, 2020. Setting aside the considerations of network infrastructure, scalability, security requirements and complete solution stack, this webcast will explore the performance of different Ethernet-based transports for NVMe over Fabrics at the detailed benchmark level. We will show three key performance indicators: IOPs, Throughput, and Latency with different workloads including: Read More

What Are the Networking Requirements for HCI?

J Metz
Hyperconverged infrastructures (also known as “HCI”) are designed to be easy to set up and manage. All you need to do is add networking. In practice, the “add networking” part has been more difficult than most anticipated. That’s why the SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) hosted a live webcast “The Networking Requirements for Hyperconverged Infrastructure” where we covered what HCI is, storage characteristics of HCI, and important networking considerations. If you missed it, it’s available on-demand. We had some interesting questions during the live webcast and as we promised during the live presentation, here are answers from our expert presenters: Read More

Experts Answer Virtualization and Storage Networking Questions

J Metz
The SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) kicked off the New Year with a live webcast “Virtualization and Storage Networking Best Practices.” We guessed it would be popular and boy, were we right! Nearly 1,000 people registered to attend. If you missed out, it’s available on-demand. You can also download a copy of the webcast slides. Our experts, Jason Massae from VMware and Cody Hosterman from Pure Storage, did a great job sharing insights and lessons learned on best practices on configuration, troubleshooting and optimization. Here’s the blog we promised at the live event with answers to all the questions we received. Q. What is a fan-in ratio? A. fan-in ratio (sometimes also called an “oversubscription ratio”) refers to the number of hosts links related to the links to a storage device. Using a very simple example can help understand the principle: Say you have a Fibre Channel network (the actual speed or protocol does not matter for our purposes here). You have 60 hosts, each with a 4GFC link, going through a series of switches, connected to a storage device, just like in the diagram below: Read More

Networking for Hyperconvergence

AlexMcDonald
“Why can’t I add a 33rd node?” One of the great advantages of Hyperconverged infrastructures (also known as “HCI”) is that, relatively speaking, they are extremely easy to set up and manage. In many ways, they’re the “Happy Meals” of infrastructure, because you have compute and storage in the same box. All you need to do is add networking. In practice, though, many consumers of HCI have found that the “add networking” part isn’t quite as much of a no-brainer as they thought it would be. Because HCI hides a great deal of the “back end” communication, it’s possible to severely underestimate or misunderstand the requirements necessary to run a seamless environment. At some point, “just add more nodes” becomes a more difficult proposition. That’s why the SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) is hosting a live webcast “Networking Requirements for Hyperconvergence” on February 5, 2019. At this webcast, we’re going to take a look behind the scenes, peek behind the GUI, so to speak. We’ll be talking about what goes on back there, and shine the light behind the bezels to see: Read More

Too Proud to Ask Webcast Series Continues – Getting from Here to There Pod

Fred Zhang Leave a comment
As part of the SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum’s successful “Everything You Wanted To Know About Storage But Were Too Proud To Ask” series, we’ve discussed numerous topics about storage devices, protocols, and networks. As we examine some of these topics further, we begin to tease out some subtle nuances; subtle, yet important nevertheless. On May 9th we’ll take on the terms and concepts that affect Storage Architectures as a whole in “Everything You Wanted To Know About Storage But Were Too Proud To Ask – Part Sepia – Getting from Here to There.” Read More