Software-defined storage: Difference between revisions

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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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** 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 examples of this are [[Scality]] RING and the open source swift project.

** Number of distributed storage solutions likefor [[Glusterclustered file system]] or [[distributed block storage]] are good examples of software defined storage.

* 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]].