Future versions

robnicholson · Tue Mar 12, 2013 6:17 pm

The current production version is 6.x - right? I've read about v8 below but is the feature list for v7 available? I spoke to sales a month or so back about prices for an additional site but got mightily confused with what existed right now, what was coming and they couldn't tell me the cost as it wasn't finalised. I assume that pricing is available now?

The feature we're most interested in is replication over WAN.

Cheers, Rob.

robnicholson · Tue Mar 12, 2013 6:26 pm

Ohh and the other "hot-topic" feature is TRIM/SHRINK support. We're rolling out Windows Server 2012 so this will be an ideal combo to help with keeping thin-provisioned disks under control.

Cheers, Rob.

Tue Mar 12, 2013 6:51 pm

1) Yes, current production is V6

2) V7 is going to be skipped for a numerous reasons

3) Yes, pricing is not stable yet but it's not going to be more expensive for sure

robnicholson wrote:The current production version is 6.x - right? I've read about v8 below but is the feature list for v7 available? I spoke to sales a month or so back about prices for an additional site but got mightily confused with what existed right now, what was coming and they couldn't tell me the cost as it wasn't finalised. I assume that pricing is available now?

The feature we're most interested in is replication over WAN.

Cheers, Rob.

Tue Mar 12, 2013 6:57 pm

Yes, this is already on the way with LSFS supporting shrinking and trimming of course and being flash-targeted "from the scratch".

robnicholson wrote:Ohh and the other "hot-topic" feature is TRIM/SHRINK support. We're rolling out Windows Server 2012 so this will be an ideal combo to help with keeping thin-provisioned disks under control.

Cheers, Rob.

robnicholson · Tue Mar 12, 2013 10:26 pm

Hi Anton- I'm both excited and slightly disappointed at the same time. Unless you tell me that the roadmap delivers this within the next three months because right now, our continued use of StarWind is been challenged by other vendors, specifically Nexenta. I'd much prefer to stay with a product that we understand and know works, because we've used it for three years but shiny new toy is always a risk.

Cheers, Rob.

Tue Mar 12, 2013 10:46 pm

Need to be very accurate with this as we're quite late on delivering Beta. Sorry it's A LOT of work. In a nutshell: we'll do log-structured file system (something VMware got with Virsto) except unlike Virsto and ZFS we don't use log to accelerate random writes, we have a solid log-structured file system (read - no background process stealing your IOPS moving data from vLog to vSpace). So no more random writes with StarWind. Also LSFS will incorporate new version of deduplication (current one has issues with being used as a VM primary storage). We'll be specially flash optimized as a primary storage and we'll be using flash as an L2 cache and one of the tiers (yes, automatic storage tiering will come either with flash caching or just a bit later - depends on other tasks). True async replication. Massive scale-out (beyond 3 nodes, definitely not SMB scenario). Closer integration with vCenter and VMM (we're already done with SMI-S provider and we'll continue integration so you'd be able to manage storage and VMs from one place). Cloud gateway thing. That's it... Well, and a new re-worked and simplified GUI of course

Not sure what did you find in Nexenta... There are other guys like Oracle who have actually the original team and rights and the most current codebase for ZFS they sell and support. Also there are other guys who like Nexenta did not write ZFS but they are not trying to sell it to you giving free of charge (various FreeBSD and Linux based appliances).

robnicholson wrote:Hi Anton- I'm both excited and slightly disappointed at the same time. Unless you tell me that the roadmap delivers this within the next three months because right now, our continued use of StarWind is been challenged by other vendors, specifically Nexenta. I'd much prefer to stay with a product that we understand and know works, because we've used it for three years but shiny new toy is always a risk.

Cheers, Rob.

Tue Mar 12, 2013 11:41 pm

Oh, and a clustered NAS configurator (to couple a PDF we have now on how to do it yourself) + sophisticated VSA builder doing full deployment on hypervisor (no need to configurate VSA "with hands"). But these things are pretty much stand-alone so we'll probably release them BEFORE V8 Beta and as part of post V6 update.

robnicholson · Wed Mar 13, 2013 12:03 am

All sounds great so WHEN is the big question. True async replication is one the features we want and also SMI-S as we're looking at VMM as well, especially for XenApp gold image deployment.

Cheers, Rob.

Wed Mar 13, 2013 12:09 am

We had to release beta in late February so... Immediately after we'll fix major performance issues we'll have it. Working hard. Trust me.

robnicholson wrote:All sounds great so WHEN is the big question. True async replication is one the features we want and also SMI-S as we're looking at VMM as well, especially for XenApp gold image deployment.

Cheers, Rob.

awedio · Wed Mar 13, 2013 2:09 am

This is a "subjective" question, but I have to ask...

Will v8 be "better" than DataCore SanSymphony v9?

Wed Mar 13, 2013 3:45 am

It would be different. We don't do FC like DataCore does and don't have any close plans to represent any either. I don't buy their idea of having flash for tiering only I like the
idea to combine flash and tiering and allow customer to select from. We'll also do cloud gateway (but probably not in the very first V8 we'll represent) and we'll be definitely do write acceleration something they don't do either and it's expected to have a HUGE impact on VM performance. Also it goes for scale out they don't do and running on hypervisor directly they don't buy as a primary idea (I do). And we do deduplication and will continue doing one (hope better). And we'll be definitely doing better GUI then now and will continue improving it (DC gets their one more and more complex rendering basically unusable). So you select. We're not a DC clone, never was and have no plans to become one

awedio wrote:This is a "subjective" question, but I have to ask...

Will v8 be "better" than DataCore SanSymphony v9?

awedio · Wed Mar 13, 2013 4:53 am

Ok Anton, well said

Now can we get the beta

You guys had "teased" us with a Xmas 2012 release date..?

btw, I for one, would prefer to stay on a platform I'm comfortable with. (Not very comfy with the *nix/Nexenta etc)

Wed Mar 13, 2013 4:56 am

No we did not tease anybody (what for?) just got major issues with performance we're still stuck with and moving forward VERY slowly

awedio wrote:Ok Anton, well said

Now can we get the beta

You guys had "teased" us with a Xmas 2012 release date..?

btw, I for one, would prefer to stay on a platform I'm comfortable with. (Not very comfy with the *nix/Nexenta etc)

robnicholson · Wed Mar 13, 2013 10:01 am

It's a bit of fresh air to get such an honest post.

Cheers, Rob.

Wed Mar 13, 2013 3:44 pm

We'll see what could be done.

robnicholson wrote:It's a bit of fresh air to get such an honest post.

Cheers, Rob.