Author: Alex McDonald

Multi-cloud Use Has Become the Norm

Alex McDonald

Multiple clouds within an organization have become the norm. This strategy enables organizations to reduce risk and dependence on a single cloud platform. The SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative (CSTI) discussed this topic at length at our live webcast last month “Why Use Multiple Clouds?”

We polled our webcast attendees on their use of multiple clouds and here’s what we learned about the cloud platforms that comprise their multi-cloud environments:

Our expert presenters, Mark Carlson and Gregory Touretsky, also discussed the benefits of a storage abstraction layer that insulates the application from the underlying cloud provider’s interfaces, something the SNIA Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI™) 2.0 enables.

Cost is always an issue with cloud. One of our session attendees asked: do you have an example of a cloud vendor who does not toll for egress? There may be a few vendors that don’t charge, but one we know of that is toll free on egress is Seagate’s Lyve Cloud; they only charge for used capacity.

We were also challenged on the economics and increased cost due to the perceived complexity of multi-cloud specifically, security. While it’s true that there’s no standard security model for multi-cloud, there are 3rd party security solutions that can simplify its management, something we covered in the webinar.

If you missed this webinar, you can access it on-demand and get a copy of the presentation slides in the SNIA Educational Library

Join Us for 15 Minutes in the Clouds

Alex McDonald
Everyone is familiar with the term “Cloud” but it’s still worth asking “What is Cloud?”  It can be defined as “networked computing facilities providing remote data storage and processing services via the Internet.” And while that definition is simple (if a little wordy!), the real-world of cloud is complex, dynamic, and ever growing. That’s why we’re hosting this series which will include brief 15-minute discussions on cloud and cloud related technologies:
  • What is Cloud – terminology
  • Cloud application architecture
  • Cloud data privacy & security
  • Cloud provider storage offerings
At this first talk “What is Cloud?” on March 2, 2022, the SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative will present a brief history of “The Cloud.” If you are a cloud expert, these sessions might not be for you, but for everyone else, this series of short talks might clear up a lot of questions you may have. Join us for a discussion on: Read More

5G Industrial Private Networks and Edge Data Pipelines

Alex McDonald
The convergence of 5G, Edge Compute and Artificial Intelligence (AI) promise to be catalyst for continued digital transformation. For many industries, it will be a game-changer in term of how business in conducted. On January 27, 202, the SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative (CSTI) will take on this topic at our live webcast “5G Industrial Private Networks and Edge Data Pipelines.” Advanced 5G is specifically designed to address the needs of verticals with capabilities like enhanced mobile broadband (emBB), ultra-reliable low latency communications (urLLC), and massive machine type communications (mMTC), to enable near real-time distributed intelligence applications. For example, automated guided vehicle and autonomous mobile robots (AGV/AMRs), wireless cameras, augmented reality for connected workers, and smart sensors across many verticals ranging from healthcare and immersive media, to factory automation. Read More

Storage at the Edge Q&A

Alex McDonald
The ability to run analytics from the data center to the Edge, where the data is generated and lives creates new use cases for nearly every business. The impact of Edge computing on storage strategy was the topic at our recent SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative (CSTI) webcast, “Extending Storage to the Edge – How It Should Affect Your Storage Strategy.” If you missed the live event, it’s available on-demand. Our experts, Erin Farr, Senior Technical Staff Member, IBM Storage CTO Innovation Team and Vincent Hsu, IBM Fellow, VP & CTO for Storage received several interesting questions during the live event. As promised, here are answers to them all. Q. What is the core principle of Edge computing technology? A. Edge computing is an industry trend rather than a standardized architecture, though there are organizations like LF EDGE with the objective of establishing an open, interoperable framework. Edge computing is generally about moving the workloads closer to where the data is generated and creating new innovative workloads due to that proximity. Common principles often include the ability to manage Edge devices at scale, using open technologies to create portable solutions, and of ultimately doing all of this with enterprise levels of security. Reference architectures exist for guidance, though implementations can vary greatly by industry vertical. Q. We all know connectivity is not guaranteed – how does that affect these different use cases? What are the HA implications? Read More

Genomics Compute, Storage & Data Management Q&A

Alex McDonald
Everyone knows data is growing at exponential rates. In fact, the numbers can be mind-numbing. That’s certainly the case when it comes to genomic data where 40,000PB of storage each year will be needed by 2025. Understanding, managing and storing this massive amount of data was the topic at our SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative webcast “Moving Genomics to the Cloud: Compute and Storage Considerations.” If you missed the live presentation, it’s available on-demand along with presentation slides. Our live audience asked many interesting questions during the webcast, but we did not have time to answer them all. As promised, our experts, Michael McManus, Torben Kling Petersen and Christopher Davidson have answered them all here. Q. Human genomes differ only by 1% or so, there’s an immediate 100x improvement in terms of data compression, 2743EB could become 27430PB, that’s 2.743M HDDs of 10TB each. We have ~200 countries for the 7.8B people, and each country could have 10 sequencing centers on average, each center would need a mere 1.4K HDDs, is there really a big challenge here? A. The problem is not that simple unfortunately. The location of genetic differences and the size of the genetic differences vary a lot across people. Still, there are compression methods like CRAM and PetaGene that can save a lot of space. Also consider all of the sequencing for rare disease, cancer, single cell sequencing, etc. plus sequencing for agricultural products. Q. What’s the best compression ratio for human genome data? Read More

Moving Genomics to the Cloud

Alex McDonald
The study of genomics in modern biology has revolutionized the discovery of medicines and the COVID pandemic response has quickened genetic research and driven the rapid development of vaccines. Genomics, however, requires a significant amount of compute power and data storage to make new discoveries possible. Making sure compute and storage are not a roadblock for genomics innovations will be the topic of discussion at the SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative live webcast “Moving Genomics to the Cloud: Compute and Storage Considerations.” This session will feature expert viewpoints from both bioinformatics and technology perspectives with a focus on some of the compute and data storage challenges for genomics workflows. We will discuss: Read More

Storage Technologies & Practices Ripe for Refresh – Part 2

Alex McDonald
So much of what we discuss in SNIA is the latest emerging technologies in storage. While it’s good to know all about the latest and greatest technologies, it’s also important to understand those technologies being sunsetted. In this SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) webcast series “Storage Technologies & Practices Ripe for Refresh” we cover technologies that are at (or close to) being past their useful life. On June 22, 2021, we’ll host the second installment of this series, Storage Technologies & Practices Ripe for Refresh – Part 2 where we’ll discuss obsolete hardware, protocols, interfaces and other aspects of storage. We’ll offer advice on how to replace these older technologies in production environments as well as why these changes are recommended. We’ll also cover protocols that you should consider removing from your networks, either older versions of protocols where only newer versions should be used, or protocols that have been supplanted by superior options and should be discontinued entirely. Finally, Read More

Continuous Delivery Software Development Q&A

Alex McDonald
What’s the best way to make a development team lean and agile? It was a question we explored at length during our SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative live webcast “Continuous Delivery: Cloud Software Development on Speed.” During this session, continuous delivery expert, Davis Frank, Co-creator of the Jasmine Test Framework, explained why product development teams are adopting a continuous delivery (CD) model. If you missed the live event, you can watch it on-demand here. The webcast audience was highly engaged with this topic and asked some interesting questions. Here are Davis Frank’s answers: Q.  What are a few simple tests you can use to determine your team’s capability to deliver CD? Read More

A Q&A on NVMe-oF Performance Hero Numbers

Alex McDonald
Last month, the SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) hosted a live webcast “NVMe-oF: Looking Beyond Performance Hero Numbers.”It was extremely popular, in fact it has been viewed almost 800 times in just two weeks! If you missed it, it’s available on-demand, along with the presentation slides at the SNIA Educational Library. Our audience asked several great questions during the live event and our expert presenters, Erik Smith, Rob Davis and Nishant Lodha have kindly answered them all here. Q. There are initiators for Linux but not for Windows? What are my options to connect NVMe-oF to Windows Server? Read More

Continuous Delivery: Cloud Software Development on Speed

Alex McDonald
It happens with more frequency these days. Two companies merge, and the IT departments breathe a small sigh of relief as they learn that they both use the same infrastructure software, though one is on-premises and one is in the cloud. Their relief slowly dissolves, as they discover that the cloud-provisioned workers are using features in the software that have yet to be integrated into the on-prem version. Now both have to adapt and it seems that no one is happy. So, what’s the best way to get these versions in sync? A Continuous Delivery model is increasingly being adopted to get software development on a pace to keep up with business demands. The Continuous Delivery model results in a development organization that looks much like current manufacturing processes with effective workers, modern machines, and a just-in-time inventory. Even large software companies are starting to embrace this cloud delivery methodology to create a continuous stream of new revisions. Read More