Friday, February 28th, 2014

Time	Event
1:30p	Building a Business Case for SDN Steve Garrison leads go-to-market and brand development strategies at Pica8, and is a networking systems veteran with nearly 20 years of technology marketing experience. Steve has held global marketing positions at public and venture-backed companies, including Infoblox, Force10 Networks (acquired by Dell, Inc.) and Riverstone Networks (acquired by Alcatel-Lucent). STEVE GARRISON Pica8 Many companies are curious about how software-defined networks can improve their network operations, but no CIO will approve an SDN project without being able to make a business case to the CFO and CEO. In this article, we’ll look at some steps to take to build a business case. What Does SDN Mean to You? An important first step is to decide what you want out of SDN – what you think it can mean for your company. One way to determine that is to consider SDN’s benefits and then think about which of them are most important. Here are some benefits of SDN: Simplifying configuration and provisioning, thereby reducing OpEx by minimizing or eliminating manual configuration Performing traffic engineering with an end-to-end view of the network Supporting the dynamic movement, replication and allocation of virtual resources Establishing virtual Ethernet networks without VLANs Enabling applications to dynamically request services from the network Reducing CapEx by using bare-metal switches instead of name-brand switches Evolving network functionality more rapidly based on a software development lifecycle More easily implementing QoS Implementing more effective security functionality These are some of the basic advantages that we hear touted for SDN, but others may occur to you as you consider the challenges of operating your IT environment and how those challenges might be alleviated. What are the Pain Points? With a good idea of the appropriate benefits in mind, the next step is to survey line of business departments about their IT needs, and how those business needs translate into the need for IT agility. You can then map the pain points back to IT processes needed and consider how SDN will help. To help guide the discussion, let’s look at three typical network areas — the data center, the WAN (or inter-campus connectivity), and the campus itself. For example, on the campus, you may rank security as your top concern and therefore focus the SDN discussion around onboarding devices into the network. SDN could help with the onboarding process – you could look at the behavior of recently added devices and potentially shutting those ports down, or isolating a device. For inter-office connectivity or WAN, you may have latency or perceived bandwidth-limiting application performance. For example collaborative tools may need some SDN tuning to help improve the user’s experience. And in the data center, a common pain point is the desire to make virtual machines (VMs) mobile, or to help manage workloads or for HA. The challenge is how to move a VM without disrupting the underlying network. Here the end game it to have a means to move the VMs and seamlessly “orchestrate” changes in the physical network. Set up a Proof of Concept (POC) The POC involves setting up an SDN test bed and determining if the SDN solution can deliver the benefits you’re expecting. Note that the SDN setup time should be included in any evaluation of the approach, along with the time it takes to achieve the benefits you are seeking. Let’s take a look at setting up three POCs. For the campus use case of adding to an overall BYOD strategy, the idea of a programmable network tap using OpenFlow could be considered. The idea here is to be able to turn on tapping functionality on any SDN-enabled port, thereby not having parallel fixed infrastructure providing tapping functionality. The argument here is fixed CapEx / OpEx for purpose-built monitoring and tapping tools, or leveraging an SDN network tap that can be bolted onto your network and used as a dynamic probe. Here the POC could explore the overall cost of the gear (CapEx) and the cost for training in both non-SDN and SDN paradigms. (OpEx). You could also look at whether SDN provides you with all the functionality or just a subset. Once you have the technical details, you can make an informed decision. For the collaborative tool project, you could compare increasing your WAN link, or increasing the port speed on your inter-campus fiber, and comparing that cost with adding SDN functionality to the gateway devices that interconnect your campus. You might want to have internal focus groups helping to measure the “before” and “after” of your POC. The quality of the service or the user experience is in fact the productivity metric. And if the collaborative tools are not used due to poor performance, you could suggest that without improvements the company has not fully realized the potential of better communication. For the data center project, the SDN POC ideally would be to mock up two racks: one with SDN and one without SDN. This POC would look at the operational aspects of reassigning VLANs and creating virtual domains within a fixed IP fabric. Thinking in terms of service metrics, such as time to new application or service availability, or time to fault resolution, will help create tangible benefits and metrics for judging the value of SDN. (Comment on this)
3:21p	Aerospike In-Memory noSQL Database Powers Snapdeal Snapdeal, India’s largest Internet retail marketplace has deployed an Aerospike in-memory NoSQL database to provide consumers with the up-to-the-moment updates about product availability, pricing, and seller ratings to help make buying decisions informed and convenient. The Snapdeal.com platform has a wide range of products from thousands of national, international and regional brands. Powered by the real-time big data processing capabilities of the Aerospike database, Snapdeal.com enables 20 million-plus shoppers to choose from 500-plus product categories from 20,000-plus sellers. “Snapdeal has emerged as the largest online marketplace in India by providing a superior consumer experience with real-time responses about product availability, pricing and seller rankings,” said Srini Srinivasan, Aerospike founder and vice president of engineering and operations. “We are thrilled by the success of Snapdeal in using our in-memory NoSQL database to continue its rapid expansion of shoppers, sellers and merchandise while ensuring that it maintains the high responsiveness that consumers have come to expect.” Snapdeal implemented the Aerospike database in combination with a MySQL database running on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). One of the benefits that Snapdeal was able to see was that the in-memory Aerospike database maintains sub-millisecond latency while managing 100 million-plus objects stored in 32 GB of DRAM to support real-time dynamic pricing. Aerospike also recently announced that it has been identified as one of the top vendors that offer an in-memory database in the TechRadar: Enterprise DBMS, Q1 2014  report published by Forrester Research. The report, which categorizes in-memory databases as being in the growth stage, states: “Forrester estimates that more than 50 percent of the enterprises will be using in-memory databases by 2017.” (Comment on this)
3:45p	Astute Networks Launches Adaptive Networked Flash Solution Astute Networks released version 5 of its ViSX OS for performance storage appliances, and Violin Memory signs with European distributor ADN and is selected for improving performance for healthcare applications at Shannon Medical Center in Texas. Astute Networks ViSX storage appliance.  Astute Networks announced the release of ViSX OS v5, the latest software release for the ViSX family of Performance Storage Appliances. The new release adds Network File System (NFS) v2, v3, and v4 to its existing iSCSI support. The ViSX also offers an expanded range of capacity options to suit the growing demand for high application performance in both physical and virtual environments, including OpenStack support for cloud deployments. Its patented DataPump Engine makes the increased performance possible by offloading and accelerating network (TCP) and storage (iSCSI, NFS) protocol processing, while leveraging ViSX’s Networked Flash architecture. ViSX plugs into the existing 1GbE or 10GbE infrastructure, and within minutes can improve application response times, by up to 10 times. ViSX storage appliances are available in capacities up to 45.6 TB in a single 2U platform. “To enable their businesses to become more agile and responsive while making users more productive, IT professionals are facing the challenge to assure high application performance and availability while reducing overall IT costs and resource requirements,” said Jeff Whitney, vice president of marketing, Astute. “That is precisely the focus of the newest release of the ViSX OS. It delivers outstanding all-flash performance while co-existing with installed storage for both physical and virtual environments. As a result, organizations achieve faster, consistent and predictable application performance while achieving a rapid ROI.” Violin Memory and ADN sign distribution deal.  Violin Memory (VMEM) announced that European distributor ADN Group will distribute Violin solutions in the DACH region which includes Germany, Austria and Switzerland. ADN will resell the complete portfolio of Violin solutions, including 6000 Series flash memory arrays, memory appliances and Violin Maestro and Symphony software. “Our customers have told us that end users are demanding longevity, reliability, scalability and economic efficiency from their storage systems,” said Herman Ramacher, Managing Director at ADN. “Because of current developments such as cloud, virtualization and big data, consistent low latency and high IOPS performance are increasingly important. The Violin Memory solutions fulfill these demands and we expect our resellers to have great success selling them in the marketplace.” Violin Memory selected by Shannon Medical Center.  Violin Memory (VMEM) announced that Shannon Medical Center in Texas has selected  Violin solutions to help improve the performance of the medical center’s key healthcare applications, enabling hospital staff to respond faster and more efficiently to the medical center’s growing patient base. Deploying its McKesson healthcare applications on a Violin 6000 Series Flash Memory Array, Shannon Medical Center experienced a dramatic 20x acceleration of application response times. The medical center was also able to scale its virtual desktop environment from 100 to 2,300 seats and drive consolidation in its data center to reduce costs.  “Our community is growing, and we needed to accommodate an increase in patients and staff,” commented Mike Russell, Assistant Director of IT at Shannon Medical Center. “Violin’s flash memory array has allowed us to massively expand our virtual desktops and increase performance at the same time. It turned out to be less expensive and a better solution than adding more disk and hoping for the best.” (Comment on this)
4:31p	Startup Turns to Kickstarter to Fund Data Center Product A look at an early concept for Rurban’s Data Suite tech community hub. Can crowdfunding get a data center project off the ground? Tech incubator Rurban has turned to online crowdfunding site Kickstarter to raise money for Data Studio, a data center and tech hub for entrepreneurs in emerging communities. The goal is to raise $150,000 by March 31, for the architectural design of the Data Studio and a feasibility study to determine the first location. Like all Kickstarter campaigns, the project won’t launch if it doesn’t hit its monetary goal. Kickstarter is a crowd-funding website that has grown in popularity as a way to launch projects. Since its launch in 2009, more than $995 million has been pledged by more than 5.7 million people, funding more than 56,000 projects. Rurban is a startup focused on tech-driven economic development, deriving its name from blending “rural” and “urban.” It wants to create a high-energy office where startups can cross-pollinate ideas and develop products. Startups will rent space to grow their business, and the Data Studio will connect them to professional networks, consultants and funding. The 5,000 square foot facility will include a data center that will offer critical networking, cloud computing and app development platforms to the resident startups. It will also provide internet exchange points to emerging communities. “The vision is to give entrepreneurs a driven environment where they can come together and build new and better things, create jobs, and even inspire the next generation,” said Josh Sanabria, CEO of Rurban. “It is beautiful to see people succeed and to bring opportunities to new places and that is what we are doing here.” Sanabria said the Data Studio is similar in vision to that of WikiHouse, an open source hardware and software platform for architecture; the Open Compute Project, launched in 2011 by Facebook to openly share designs of data center products. The mission is to spark creativity in young companies by giving them the right tools and contacts to accomplish their goals. Of course, there’s a long way to go. There are different pledge levels offered, each with incentives based on the pledge. It’s also important to note that if the project isn’t fully funded, participants never have to pay their pledge. The Kickstarter just launched and is available here. Here’s a video in which Sanabria reviews the concept for the Rurban Data Center. (Comment on this)
5:15p	Friday Funny: What’s the Best Caption for Our “Golden” Cartoon? Thank Goodness It’s Friday! Because it’s the end of the work week,  it’s time for our caption contest, with cartoons drawn by Diane Alber, our favorite data center cartoonist! Please visit Diane’s website Kip and Gary for more of her data center humor. Here’s how it works. We provide the cartoon and you, our readers, submit the captions. We then choose finalists and the readers vote for their favorite funniest suggestion. The winner receives a hard copy print, with his or her caption included in the cartoon. This week, we are voting on the last cartoon.  Please vote below, and have a good weekend! Take Our Poll Please visit Diane’s website Kip and Gary for more of her data center humor. For the previous cartoons on DCK, see our Humor Channel. (Comment on this)

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