Why cloud challange storage

Hello

I'm on fire today, a new message on a new subject, cloud and storage and why it is a challenging problem.

Before the arrival of virtualization, the storage guy was someone with a cool job, no many challenge, slow changes inside the datacenter so I can see all changes and plan easily for his need. But VMware and their friend arrive, with virtualization concept, and badaboom. They need storage, a lot of storage, and they are resource consuming obliviously. They also need a robust storage solution. Last point backup in virtual are not working like physical so the storage need to adapt. And most of then have taken the evolution or revolution on their shoulder to bring success to virtualization. Thanks Guys because a good virtualization solution cannot work with a bad SAN solution.
Now storage guy think, 'ok, virtualization is done, VDI also, I can get some rest.'

Sorry Guy, I have a new nightmare for you, one who is going to challenge you more than virtualization. What is it? It's cloud, and let me tell you why? With virtualization you did get an idea of the I/O required by each system and each VM and you were able to place it on the right storage with the correct SLA and performance. But with Cloud you will not know the I/O generated by each new VM and you will have to respect SLA and performance. The problem is how will you guess the I/O now? Even the VMware admin won't know about it. And what's happen if you storage is inside your cloud provider. How much will you pay for the I/O consumed?

So you need to make a new approach and set a new design for storage datacenter. We don't have any choice to make our storage more intelligent so it will be able to adapt dynamically to I/O picks or I/O traffic jam. The storage guy will also need to check what's is happening inside the hybrid cloud and limit overpayment for the external cloud provider. Most vendor start to deliver some more intelligent storage and soon you will need also dashboard to see your cost inside and outside your datacenter and get a full picture of your cloud storage, but storage topology will also need to change. Few hardware initiative are starting like SCSI on Pci bus so no more storage processor that limits extensibility of storage but the ideal solution is not there at this moment. To avoid congestion we try to virtualize storage also. This will help a lot but I think the change need to be more deeper to be able to embrace and support a full cloud datacenter. With storage virtualization you will get automation and more flexibility but most of the storage solutions are vendor locked so be careful when it's time to make a choice

thanks