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Let's kill off the meaningless concept of SW-defined storage

All in all, all things considered, it’s rubbish

Comment Software-defined storage has become a meaningless and useless concept.

It doesn't tell you anything useful beyond the vague idea that software drives the hardware. Well, yes, when virtually every storage hardware product you use is based on commodity hardware then it would, wouldn't it?

I met a person the other day who said they drive a petrol-engined vehicle. Great, what a dickhead. I asked him was it:

  • A moped
  • A scooter
  • A motorcycle
  • A small coupe
  • A large coupe
  • An SUV
  • An offroad vehicle
  • A sportscar
  • A panel van
  • A small coach

As I said, a dickhead.

So, if someone tells you they make SW-defined storage you then have to ask:

  • Is it SW-only and you choose your own HW?
  • Is it combined SW and HW?
  • Is it combined SW and proprietary or commodity HW?
  • Is it a filer?
  • Is it block-access?
  • If block access is it a real SAN or a virtual SAN?
  • Is it object access?
  • Is it real storage or a control plane only?
  • Is it some combination of file, block and object access? Which?
  • Is it cloud-based, on-premises or a hybrid?
  • Is it scale-out, scale-up or both?
  • Is it for Tier 1 data, nearline, backup or archive data or a mix?
  • Is it for all-flash, all-disk or hybrid media?

See what I mean?

Saying a product is SW-defined storage is nowhere near good enough. And making this assertion — that because SW-defined storage in general is taking off and growing like a weed on steroids, by extension your SW-defined storage product will ramp up sales like a rocket — is just plain silly.

SW-defined storage is storage software sold independently of hardware. That's it. Think Nexenta, Scality, Atlantis, PernixData, DataCore, Maxta and other suppliers.

It's HW supplier-independent storage which the supplier then needs to tell you provides file, object or physical/virtual SAN block access with a scale-out/up/both design, etc, etc.

Anything else is just pseudo-sophisticated marketing bollocks; ordure fit only for fan blade coating. ®

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