Close
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Latest News
    • Servers
    • Storage

    Microsoft Readies Windows Server for Software-Defined Storage Era

    By
    Pedro Hernandez
    -
    December 16, 2014
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin
      software-defined storage

      Microsoft is adding new features to an upcoming version of Windows Server that are aimed at helping customers provide enterprise data storage services with commodity hardware.

      Members of Microsoft’s high availability and storage group—Claus Joergensen, a principal program manager, and Ned Pyle, a senior program manager—appeared on the company’s online video series, The Edge, to preview some of the storage technologies being baked into the next major release of the server operating system. The new features, said Joergensen, are part of Microsoft’s continued pursuit of a software-defined approach to storage for the Windows Server ecosystem.

      Following up Microsoft’s work on Windows Server 2012, particularly the SMB3 protocol and Storage Spaces, the latter of “which allows you to take commodity storage hardware components and create storage pools and virtual disks,” the company is doubling down on software-defined storage, according to Joergensen.

      “Now, in the next release, we are continuing those investments,” said Joergensen. He also teased “new, exciting hardware that we will be embracing.”

      Joergensen described software-defined storage as “super important” for the software giant, allowing the company “to increasingly remove the need for specialty hardware.” For customers, it opens the door to enterprise-grade data storage capabilities and management at a lower price tag.

      “So you can take standard, off-the-shelf server hardware and you can build [a] high-availability storage solution as well a high-availability compute solution without the need for traditional specialty hardware,” he continued.

      The new Shared-Nothing Storage Spaces feature lowers cost by creating pools of capacity and failover clusters that leverage direct-attached storage, bypassing the need for storage area networks (SANs). One feature Joergensen said he was “super excited about” is automatic rebalancing.

      Customers will be able to add new nodes and allow Windows Server to self-optimize the data placement if, for example, they need to upgrade from a four-node set-up to six nodes.

      With the new software, “we can rebalance that data across those additional two nodes so that you can consume all of it and get the additional performance and capacity without necessarily needing to create a new virtual disk and deploy new VMs [virtual machines] to realize it,” Joergensen said.

      Microsoft is also seeking to minimize the potential for data loss with its new synchronous replication solution, Storage Replica, a step up from Hyper-V Replica, the company’s current asynchronous data protection scheme. With Hyper-V Replica, data can fall through the cracks if a mishap takes place between preset data mirroring intervals.

      Storage Replica “is designed to fill in that gap that we’ve had in our storage stack the entire time,” said Pyle. “You can run everything Windows if you wanted,” he said of Hyper-V Replica, but customers were still required “to buy somebody else’s product if you wanted to do synchronous replication, or what we call, block replication.” The new solution is “purely agnostic to the hardware, agnostic to the storage, agnostic to the file system” and provides around-the-clock protection, he said.

      Pedro Hernandez
      Pedro Hernandez is a contributor to eWEEK and the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Previously, he served as a managing editor for the Internet.com network of IT-related websites and as the Green IT curator for GigaOM Pro.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Big Data and Analytics

      Alteryx’s Suresh Vittal on the Democratization of...

      James Maguire - May 31, 2022 0
      I spoke with Suresh Vittal, Chief Product Officer at Alteryx, about the industry mega-shift toward making data analytics tools accessible to a company’s complete...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      Visa’s Michael Jabbara on Cybersecurity and Digital...

      James Maguire - May 17, 2022 0
      I spoke with Michael Jabbara, VP and Global Head of Fraud Services at Visa, about the cybersecurity technology used to ensure the safe transfer...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      GoodData CEO Roman Stanek on Business Intelligence...

      James Maguire - May 4, 2022 0
      I spoke with Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData, about business intelligence, data as a service, and the frustration that many executives have with data...
      Read more
      Applications

      Cisco’s Thimaya Subaiya on Customer Experience in...

      James Maguire - May 10, 2022 0
      I spoke with Thimaya Subaiya, SVP and GM of Global Customer Experience at Cisco, about the factors that create good customer experience – and...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Yotascale CEO Asim Razzaq on Controlling Multicloud...

      James Maguire - May 5, 2022 0
      Asim Razzaq, CEO of Yotascale, provides guidance on understanding—and containing—the complex cost structure of multicloud computing. Among the topics we covered:  As you survey the...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×