In the 90s, corporate data technology featured the two major factions of SAN and NAS and they remained the solutions of choice for typical businesses. However, with the rise of cloud computing, corporate data technology had evolved to yet another significant milestone.

The Data storage as a Services (DaaSs) currently offered by cloud storage vendors can be roughly divided into the following three types：
1. For commonly used SAN and NAS or a mix of both. It allows users to connect to the Internet or local network, and they use block or file level systems as storage. For example, the user may use the block service from the cloud storage vendor via IP-SAN to add a host computer drive. Or, they may use the file level system from the cloud storage vendor via the CIFS/NFS protocol. This type of cloud storage technology makes it possible for users to utilize existing IT infrastructure and investment;
2. For database applications. It is able to offer operations identical to those of the database and features excellent database scalability. Though, it often requires dedicated APIs from specific software vendors for interfacing; and
3. For object-based cloud storage. It is a software-defined storage service where all data entries are treated as objects and assigned with Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) for the Name Base web-based interface or API to access. For instance, Amazon S3 uses API to access files.

Like cloud computing, the cloud storage service has the advantage of charging users by their rented capacities while it is utilized in a way totally different from that of existing IT technology. There are also a lot of add-on software that target cloud storage, including data compression, data de-duplication, etc., to reduce the physical storage space used. After all, cloud services tend to bill users by their usage.

Currently, cloud storage services are developed based on vendors’ proprietary specifications, and this is a major issue for development because there are often incompatible data formats between services. Therefore, the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) had to lay the foundations for cloud storage standards, Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI), and completed version 1.0.1 specifications and definition as early as 2012. The standards enable Software-Defined Storage (SDS) to resolve the compatibility issue on a gradual basis and assist in developing new storage technology.

With the above-mentioned technical development history in mind, we can see that the cloud environment is already here. But, what are the hardware requirements for SDS? 

At Gigabyte, we worked with cloud storage developers to learn the required functionalities and provide them with the SDS hardware configurations. From our analysis, we found that：
● CPU: By Core (the number of processor cores to be determined by the operating system and the program requirements for the object-based storage system) 
● Memory: Per OS & OSD quantity corresponding 
● SDS OS firmware: Independent Disk 240GB *2 (Minimum) 
● Cache Disk: Per OSD Capacity correspondence
● Data Disk: According to demand capacity
● NIC Port: By demand structure
● Raid Card: By demand structure & ISV Software firmware

The biggest difference between traditional storage and SDS architectures is their system expansion requirements. The advantages of SDS include：
● On-demand scale-out can be carried out at any time
● System operations are not affected by any single point of failure
● Stored data doesn’t need to be migrated during the expansion process

The disadvantages of traditional storage architectures include：
1. Management becomes very difficult due to different hardware brands offered by traditional storage vendors
  ● Complex storage brands and hardware types
  ● Interfacing between different host systems and the virtual platform
2. Rapidly changing application requirements from Big Data are not met
  ● Low flexibility as restricted by the architecture
  ● New storage requirements set by users
  ● Storage connection and performance requirements from new business services
3. Resource utilization of traditional storage is imbalanced
  ● Imbalanced resource utilization due to different applications
  ● Unmet rapid and urgent needs from the same application
 
The new SDS technology can solve the bottlenecks of traditional storage architectures.

1. x86 hosts that can be connected to typical networks are used to overcome the restrictions of dedicated connections in traditional storage architecture, eliminating island and data migration issues.
2. The flexibility of the storage scale, capacity and performance requirements are better than traditional architectures.
3. System deployment can be done at the root layer of the virtually architected platform so that applications and data storage can coexist and share resources.
4. A wide array of storage protocols are supported.
5. The OpenStack storage environment and mainstream virtual platforms, including VMware, MSFT Hyper-V or Linux-based storage network architectures, are supported.

SDS is far superior to traditional storage technology, though it faces many challenges in the corporate IT environment or private cloud architecture. While the SDS architecture is utilized for the data pool configuration of supercomputer centers to meet their high capacity and high-speed transmission requirements, it must be customized based on the requirements, making it difficult to scale-down for small-scale projects.

Bigtera is a brand owned by Silicon Motion Technology. The Bigtera VirtualStor Scaler product line focuses on offering highly cost-effective storage products with scale-out capabilities so that users can adjust and expand flexibly based on their business needs. The scale-out architecture of the VirtualStor Scaler boasts the advantages of flexibility, data protection, etc., inherent to the SDS architecture.

VMware’s vSAN is the SDS product for vSphere virtual architecture that users can simultaneously compute and store on the VMware platform. VMware vSAN is available for standard x86 servers. According to the vSAN deployment guide, the x86 servers designed and produced by Gigabyte can be configured accordingly. Gigabyte servers with vSAN’s hyper-converged infrastructure products are easy to plan and deploy as long as specific configurations are used, as seen in the below server tables.

With the launch of the next-generation processors, Gigabyte will continue its efforts to optimize its server hardware product design and work with SDS partners to develop SDS architected products with on-demand capacity expansion capabilities to offer one-stop procurement and integrated storage resources to effectively eliminate storage islands.