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{{Short description|Type of computer data storage}}
'''Software-defined storage ''' ('''SDS''') is a marketing term for [[computer data storage]] software for policy-based provisioning and management of data storage independent of the underlying hardware. Software-defined storage typically includes a form of [[storage virtualization]] to separate the storage hardware from the software that manages it.<ref>{{Cite web |title= Definition: software-defined storage |author= Margaret Rouse |work= SearchSDN |publisher= Tech Target <!-- reliable? --> |url= http://searchsdn.techtarget.com/definition/software-defined-storage |accessdate= November 7, 2013 }}</ref> The software enabling a software-defined storage environment may also provide policy management for features such as [[data deduplication]], replication, [[thin provisioning]], snapshots, copy-on-write clones, tiering and backup.
Software-defined storage (SDS) hardware may or may not also have abstraction, pooling, or automation software of its own. When implemented as software only in conjunction with commodity servers with internal disks, it may suggest software such as a virtual or global [[file system]] or [[distributed block storage]]. If it is software layered over sophisticated large storage arrays, it suggests software such as [[storage virtualization]] or [[storage resource management]], categories of products that address separate and different problems. If the policy and management functions also include a form of [[artificial intelligence]] to automate protection and recovery, it can be considered as intelligent abstraction.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The foundation of clouds: Intelligent abstraction |author=Chris Poelker |date= March 12, 2014 |url= http://www.computerworld.com/article/2476040/cloud-computing/the-foundation-of-clouds--intelligent-abstraction.html}}</ref> Software-defined storage may be implemented via appliances over a traditional [[storage area network]] (SAN), or implemented as [[network-attached storage]] (NAS), or using [[Object storage|object-based storage]]. In March 2014 the [[Storage Networking Industry Association]] (SNIA) began a report on software-defined storage.<ref>{{cite news |url= http://snia.org/sites/default/files/SNIA%20Software%20Defined%20Storage%20White%20Paper-%20v1.0k-DRAFT.pdf/|title=Technical Whitepaper:Software Defined Storage |author= SNIA |date= March 2014 }}</ref>
==Software-defined storage industry==
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{{Cite web |title= The Software-Defined Data Center |work= company web site |publisher= VMware |url= http://www.vmware.com/software-defined-datacenter/ |accessdate= November 7, 2013 }}
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Other smaller companies then adopted the term "software-defined storage", such as [[Cleversafe Inc.|Cleversafe]] (acquired by [[IBM]]), and [[OpenIO]].
Based on similar concepts as [[software-defined networking]] (SDN),<ref>{{Cite web |title= Definition: software-defined storage |author= Margaret Rouse |work= SearchSDN |publisher= Tech Target <!-- reliable? --> |url= http://searchsdn.techtarget.com/definition/software-defined-storage |accessdate= November 7, 2013 }}</ref>
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The software-defined storage industry is projected to reach $86 billion by 2023.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/flourishing-software-defined-storage-market-will-ramp-up-to-86b-by-2023-report|title=Thriving software-defined-storage market will ramp up to $86B by 2023: report|website=FierceTelecom|date=20 March 2020 |language=en|access-date=2020-03-23}}</ref>
Building on the concept of VMware, esurfing cloud has launched a new software-defined storage product called HBlock. HBlock is a lightweight storage cluster controller that operates in user mode. It can be installed on any Linux operating system as a regular application without root access, and deployed alongside other applications on the server. HBlock integrates unused disk space across various servers to create high-performance and highly available virtual disks. These virtual disks can be mounted to local or other remote servers using the standard iSCSI protocol, revitalizing storage resources on-site without impacting existing operations or requiring additional hardware purchases.<ref>{{Cite web |title=第二期观点｜天翼云存储资源盘活系统 HBlock，全面释放企业数据价值_云计算_InfoQ精选文章 |url=https://www.infoq.cn/article/HOTjbXqI4WmFSuhVjUDa |access-date=2024-04-16 |website=www.infoq.cn}}</ref>
==Characteristics==
Characteristics of software-defined storage may include the following features:<ref name="hype">{{cite web |title=Software-defined storage: The reality beneath the hype |date= March 12, 2013 |author= Simon Robinson |work= Computer Weekly |url= http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Software-defined-storage-The-reality-beneath-the-hype |accessdate= November 7, 2013 }}</ref>
* Abstraction of logical storage services and capabilities from the underlying physical storage systems, and in some cases pooling across multiple different implementations. Since data movement is relatively expensive and slow compared to computation and services
** [[Storage virtualization]], the generalized category of approaches and historic products. External-controller based arrays include storage virtualization to manage usage and access across the drives within their own pools. Other products exist independently to manage across arrays and/or server DAS storage.
** Virtual volumes (VVols), a proposal from [[VMware]] for a more transparent mapping between large volumes and the VM disk images within them, to allow better performance and data management optimizations. This does not reflect a new capability for virtual infrastructure administrators (who can already use, for example, NFS) but it does offer arrays using [[iSCSI]] or [[Fibre Channel]] a path to higher admin leverage for cross-array management apps written to the virtual infrastructure.
** Parallel [[Network File System|NFS]] (pNFS), a specific implementation which evolved within the NFS community but has expanded to many implementations.
** [[OpenStack]] and its Swift, [[Ceph (software)|Ceph]] and Cinder APIs for storage interaction, which have been applied{{by whom|date=August 2014}} to open-source projects as well as to vendor products.
** A number of Object Storage platforms are also examples of software-defined storage implementations
** Number of distributed storage solutions
* Automation with policy-driven storage provisioning with [[service-level agreement]]s replacing technology details. This requires management interfaces that span traditional storage-array products, as a particular definition of separating "control plane" from "data plane", in the spirit of [[OpenFlow]]. Prior industry standardization efforts included the [[Storage Management Initiative – Specification]] (SMI-S) which began in 2000.
* Commodity hardware with storage logic abstracted into a software layer. This is also described{{by whom|date=August 2014}} as a [[clustered file system]] for [[converged storage]].
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===Server vs. storage hypervisor===
An analogy can be drawn between the concept of a server hypervisor and the concept of a storage hypervisor. By virtualizing servers, server hypervisors ([[VMware ESX]], [[Microsoft Hyper-V]], Citrix Hypervisor, [[Linux KVM]], [[Xen]], [[z/VM]]) increased the utilization rates for server resources, and provided management flexibility by de-coupling servers from hardware. This led to cost savings in server infrastructure since fewer physical servers were needed to handle the same workload, and provided flexibility in administrative operations like backup, failover and disaster recovery.
A storage hypervisor does for storage resources what the server hypervisor did for server resources. A storage hypervisor changes how the server hypervisor handles storage I/O to get more performance out of existing storage resources, and increases efficiency in storage capacity consumption, storage provisioning and snapshot/clone technology. A storage hypervisor, like a server hypervisor, increases performance and management flexibility for improved resource utilization.
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[[Category:Cloud storage]]
[[Category:Information technology]]
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