snia – Page 2 – SNIA on Storage

Live Webcast: 10GbE – Key Trends, Drivers and Predictions

July 12, 2012July 12, 2012 Jason Blosil

The SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum (ESF) will be presenting a live Webcast on 10GbE on Thursday, July 19^th. Together with my SNIA colleagues, David Fair and Gary Gumanow, we’ll be discussing the technical and economic justifications that will likely make 2012 the “breakout year” for 10GbE. We’ll cover the disruptive technologies moving this protocol forward and highlight the real-world benefits early adopters are seeing. I hope you will join us!

The Webacast will begin at 8:00 a.m. PT/11:00 a.m. ET. Register Now: http://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/663/50385

This event is live, so please come armed with your questions. We’ll answer as many as we can on the spot and include the full Q&A here in a SNIA ESF blog post.

We look forward to seeing you on the 19^th!

Live Webcast: 10GbE – Key Trends, Drivers and Predictions

July 12, 2012July 12, 2012 Jason Blosil

The Webacast will begin at 8:00 a.m. PT/11:00 a.m. ET. Register Now: http://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/663/50385

This event is live, so please come armed with your questions. We’ll answer as many as we can on the spot and include the full Q&A here in a SNIA ESF blog post.

We look forward to seeing you on the 19^th!

Quick PTS Implementation

November 11, 2011November 11, 2011 Jim Handy

Need an abbreviated version of the SNIA SSD Performance Test Specification (PTS) in a hurry? Jamon Bowen of Texas Memory Systems (TMS) whipped up a simple implementation of certain key parts of the PTS that can be run on a Linux system and interpreted in Excel.

It’s a free download on his Storage Tuning blog.

This is a boon for anyone that might want to run a internal preliminary test before pursuing a more formal route.

The bash script uses the Flexible I/O utility (FIO) to run through part of the SSSI PTS. FIO does the heavy lifting, and the script manages it. The script outputs comma separated (CSV) data and the download includes an Excel pivot table that helps format the results and select the measurement window.

Since this is a bare-bones implementation the SSD must be initialized manually before the test script is run.

The test runs the IOPS Test from the PTS. This test covers a range of block sizes, read/write ratios and iterates until the steady state for the device is reached (with a maximum of 25 iterations). Altogether the test takes over a day to run.

Once the test is complete, the downloadable pivot tables allow users to select the steady-state measurement window and report the data in a recommended format.

See Mr. Bowen’s blog at http://storagetuning.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/sssi-performance-test-specification/ for details on this valuable download.

SQL Server “rocks” with iSCSI – Emulex and NetApp tell why

February 11, 2011February 11, 2011 Jason Blosil

The leading storage network technology for mission critical applications today is Fibre Channel (FC). Fibre Channel is a highly reliable and high performing network technology for block storage applications. But, for organizations that can’t afford single purpose networks or the added complexity of managing more than one network technology, FC may not be ideal. With the introduction of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), the ability to deploy your FC storage resources over a shared Ethernet network is now possible. But, FCoE isn’t the only available option for block storage over Ethernet.

Initially used primarily by small and medium sized businesses or for less demanding applications, iSCSI is now finding broad application by larger enterprises for mission critical applications. Some of the drivers for increased iSCSI adoption in the enterprise include lower cost for 10Gb Ethernet components as well as the drive toward cloud based infrastructures which benefit from increased flexibility and scalability associated with IP network protocols.

On February 24^th, the SNIA Ethrnet Storage Forum will present a live webcast to discuss the advantages of iSCSI storage for business applications and will show test results demonstrating the performance of SQL Server deployed with 10GbE iSCSI. Hosted by Gary Gumanow, co-chair of the iSCSI SIG and ESF board member, this presentation will include content experts from Emulex and NetApp along with a live Q&A.

Guest Speakers

Steve Abbott – Sr. Product Marketing Manager, Emulex

Wei Liu – Microsoft Alliance Engineer, NetApp

Data & Time: February 24^th, 11am PT

SNIA ESF

The SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum is dedicated to educating the IT community on the advantages and best use of Ethernet storage. This presentation is the first in a series of marketing activities that will primarily focus on data center applications during the calendar year 2011.