{"id":4852,"date":"2017-03-15T16:00:48","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T06:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/?p=4852"},"modified":"2017-03-15T13:57:21","modified_gmt":"2017-03-15T03:57:21","slug":"nimble-storage-gets-cloudy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/nimble-storage-gets-cloudy\/","title":{"rendered":"Nimble Storage Gets Cloudy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Disclaimer: I recently attended\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/techfieldday.com\/event\/sfd12\/\" target=\"_blank\"><b><span style=\"color: #1409e5;\">Storage Field Day 12<\/span><\/b><\/a><b>.\u00a0 My flights,\u00a0accommodation and other expenses were paid for by Tech Field Day. There is no requirement for me to blog about any of the content presented and I am not compensated in any way for my time at the event.\u00a0 Some materials presented were discussed under NDA and don\u2019t form part of my blog posts, but could influence future discussions.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/SFD-Logo2-150x150.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/SFD-Logo2-150x150.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/400px-Nimble_logo.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3151\" src=\"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/400px-Nimble_logo-300x120.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"120\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/400px-Nimble_logo-300x120.png 300w, https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/400px-Nimble_logo.png 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here are some notes from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nimblestorage.com\/\">Nimble Storage<\/a>&#8216;s\u00a0presentation at Storage Field Day 12. You can view the video <a href=\"http:\/\/techfieldday.com\/appearance\/nimble-storage-presents-at-storage-field-day-12\/\">here<\/a> and download my rough notes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/SFD12_NimbleStorage.pdf\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nimble Cloud Volumes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Nimble_ncv_graphic_outlined_clouds_AWS_MS_NCV.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5025\" src=\"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Nimble_ncv_graphic_outlined_clouds_AWS_MS_NCV.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"674\" height=\"385\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Nimble_ncv_graphic_outlined_clouds_AWS_MS_NCV.jpg 674w, https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Nimble_ncv_graphic_outlined_clouds_AWS_MS_NCV-300x171.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 674px) 100vw, 674px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>[image courtesy of Nimble Storage]<\/p>\n<p>Nimble Storage announced the beta of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nimblestorage.com\/technology-products\/nimble-cloud-volumes\/\">Nimble Cloud Volumes<\/a>\u00a0(NCV) in late February. Essentially, it is a block storage as a service and works with public cloud compute from <a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/\">AWS<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/en-au\/\">Microsoft\u00a0Azure<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Storage in the Cloud?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>So what&#8217;s the problem with cloud block storage at the moment? Nimble spoke about the following issues:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Durability and features &#8211; Nimble suggest that there is 0.1 &#8211; 0.2% annual failure rate with cloud block storage and a real\u00a0lack of data services wrapped around the solutions;<\/li>\n<li>Cloud lock-in is a problem &#8211; data mobility is hard (the &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hotel_California\">Hotel California<\/a> Effect&#8221;), and data egress costs real money;<\/li>\n<li>\u201cBlack box penalty\u201d &#8211; limited visibility into the solution as the storage is ostensibly a black box service provided by your cloud operator. Nimble are counting on people not being entirely comfortable with giving it up to the cloud gods.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>So What&#8217;s NCV?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The solution&#8217;s built on Nimble&#8217;s own cloud and their own technology, with deployments existing in very\u00a0close proximity to AWS and Azure data centres (DCs). The idea is you use\u00a0NCV for storage and AWS or Azure for your compute. Note that this is currently only operating in American regions, but I imagine that this capability will be expanded based on positive results with the beta. You can read more in the very handy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nimblestorage.com\/cloud-faq\/\">NCV FAQ<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Why Bother with NCV?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>According to Nimble, this stuff is enterprise-grade, offering:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Millions of times more durable;<\/li>\n<li>Data protection &amp; copy data management; and<\/li>\n<li>Multi-host access.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Which all sounds great. Although I&#8217;d probably take pause when people claim &#8220;millions&#8221; of times more durability with their solution. In any case, like all things Nimble, you get great visibility into both the cloud and data centre, along with the ability to predict, recommend and optimise the environment to suit your key applications, while leveraging Nimble&#8217;s tools to better predict and track usage.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thoughts and Further Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A large part of Nimble&#8217;s success, in my opinion, has been their relentless focus on analytics and visibility. They&#8217;re betting that people like this (and why wouldn&#8217;t they?) and are looking for this kind of capability from their cloud block storage solutions. They&#8217;re also betting that everyone&#8217;s had some kind\u00a0of bad experience with block storage in the cloud in the past and will want to take advantage of Nimble&#8217;s focus on performance and reliability. It&#8217;s a big bet, but sometimes you have to go big. I think the solutions ties in nicely with the market&#8217;s acceptance of cloud as a viable compute platform, while leveraging their strength with monitoring and analytics.<\/p>\n<p>People want to consume their infrastructure as a service. Whether it&#8217;s the right thing to do or not. Nimble\u00a0are simple stepping in and doing their own version of consumptive infrastructure. I&#8217;m keen to see how this gets adopted by existing Nimble customers and whether it\u00a0draws in other customers who may have been on the fence regarding either public cloud adoption or migration from on-premises block storage solutions. You can read more at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2017\/02\/27\/nimble_aws_and_azure_cloud_storage\/\">El Reg<\/a>, while Dimitris does a <a href=\"http:\/\/recoverymonkey.org\/2017\/02\/27\/nimble-cloud-volumes-removing-risk-from-cloud-storage\/\">much better job of writing about this<\/a> than I do (as he should, given he works for them).\u00a0The datasheet for NCV can also be downloaded from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nimblestorage.com\/NCV-Datasheet.pdf\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Elephant in the Room<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For those of you playing along at home, you may have noticed that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-nimble-storage-m-a-hewlett-packard-idUSKBN16E1JM\">HPE announced\u00a0their intent to acquire Nimble<\/a> just a few days before their Storage Field Day presentation. You can read some interesting articles on the proposed acquisition <a href=\"http:\/\/vinfrastructure.it\/2017\/03\/hpe-buing-nimble-storage\/\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.architecting.it\/2017\/03\/08\/nimble-hpe-and-20-year-old-architectures\/\">here<\/a>.\u00a0For what it&#8217;s worth I think\u00a0it&#8217;s going to be fascinating\u00a0to see how they get bought into the fold, and what that means for the broader HPE portfolio of products. In any case, I wish them well, as everyone I&#8217;ve dealt with at Nimble has always been super friendly and very helpful.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/A_warm_welcome_from__nimblestorage_for__SFD12.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-5026\" src=\"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/A_warm_welcome_from__nimblestorage_for__SFD12.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Disclaimer: I recently attended\u00a0Storage Field Day 12.\u00a0 My flights,\u00a0accommodation and other expenses were paid for by Tech Field Day. There is no requirement for me to blog about any of the content presented and I am not compensated in any way for my time at the event.\u00a0 Some materials presented were discussed under NDA and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[694,5,686],"tags":[279,836,980,787,684,683],"class_list":["post-4852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nimblestorage","category-storage","category-storage-field-day","tag-cloud","tag-nimble-storage","tag-sfd12","tag-storage","tag-storagefieldday","tag-techfieldday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4852"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5027,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4852\/revisions\/5027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.penguinpunk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}