Data Direct Networks Archives

AI and the Data Factory

By cfheoh | November 19, 2024 - 6:13 am |November 19, 2024 Algorithm, Analytics, API, Appliance, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud, Clusters, Composable Infrastructure, Data, Data Direct Networks, Data Governance, Data Management, Data Privacy, Data Protection, Data Security, DDN, Deep Learning, Digital Transformation, Filesystems, Hadoop Clusters, High Performance Computing, Lustre, Machine Learning, Mellanox, Mellanox Technologies, Minio, nVidia, Object Storage, Parallel NFS, Performance Benchmark, Performance Caching, RDMA, Scale-out architecture, Storage Optimization

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When I first heard of the word “AI Factory”, the world was blaring Jensen Huang‘s keynote at NVIDIA GTC24. I thought those were cool words, since he mentioned about the raw material of water going into the factory to produce electricity. The analogy was spot on for the AI we are building.

As I engage with many DDN partners and end users in the region, week in, week out, the “AI Factory” word keeps popping into conversations. Yet, many still do not know how to go about building this “AI Factory”. They only know they need to buy GPUs, lots of them. These companies’ AI ambitions are unabated. And IDC predicts that worldwide spending on AI will double by 2028, and yet, the ROI (returns on investment) remains elusive.

At the ground level, based on many conversations so far, the common theme is, the steps to begin building the AI Factory are ambiguous and fuzzy to most. I like to share my views from a data storage point of view. Hence, my take on the Data Factory for AI.

Are you AI-ready?

We have to have a plan but before we take the first step, we must look at where we are standing at the present moment. We know that to train AI, the proverbial step is, we need lots of data. Deep Learning (DL) works with Large Language Models (LLMs), and Generative AI (GenAI), needs tons of data.

If the company knows where they are, they will know which phase is next. So, in the AI Maturity Model (I simplified the diagram below), where is your company now? Are you AI-ready?

Simplified AI Maturity Model

Get the Data Strategy Right

In his interview with CRN, MinIO’s CEO AB Periasamy quoted “For generative AI, they realized that buying more GPUs without a coherent data strategy meant GPUs are going to idle out”. I was struck by his wisdom about having a coherent data strategy because that is absolutely true. This is my starting point. Having the Right Data Strategy.

In the AI world, from a data storage guy, data is the fuel. Data is the raw material that Jensen alluded to, if it was obvious. We have heard this anecdotal quote many times before, even before the AI phenomenon took over. AI is data-driven. Data is vital for the ROI of AI projects. And thus, we must look from the point of the data to make the AI Factory successful.

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The All-Important Storage Appliance Mindset for HPC and AI projects

By cfheoh | July 22, 2024 - 7:30 am |November 17, 2024 API, Appliance, Artificial Intelligence, BeeGFS, Big Data, Cloud, Clusters, Data Direct Networks, DDN, Deep Learning, Digital Transformation, Elastifile, Filesystems, Flash, High Performance Computing, Infiniband, iXsystems, Lustre, Machine Learning, MapReduce, NAS, NetApp, NFS, nVidia, NVMe, Object Storage, Parallel NFS, Performance Benchmark, Performance Caching, RDMA, Scale-out architecture, Software Defined Storage, Solid State Devices, Storage Optimization, ThinkParq, WekaIO

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I am strong believer of using the right tool to do the job right. I have said this before 2 years ago, in my blog “Stating the case for a Storage Appliance approach“. It was written when I was previously working for an open source storage company. And I am an advocate of the crafter versus assembler mindset, especially in the enterprise and high- performance storage technology segments.

I have joined DDN. Even with DDN that same mindset does not change a bit. I have been saying all along that the storage appliance model should always be the mindset for the businesses’ peace-of-mind.

My view of the storage appliance model began almost 25 years. I came into NAS systems world via Sun Microsystems®. Sun was famous for running NFS servers on general Sun Solaris servers. NFS services on Unix systems. Back then, I remember arguing with one of the Sun distributors about the tenets of running NFS over 100Mbit/sec Ethernet on Sun servers. I was drinking Sun’s Kool-Aid big time.

When I joined Network Appliance® (now NetApp®) in 2000, my worldview of putting software on general purpose servers changed. Network Appliance®, had one product family, the FAS700 (720, 740, 760) family. All NetApp® did was to serve NFS services in the beginning. They were the NAS filers and nothing else.

I was completed sold on the appliance way with NetApp®. Firstly, it was my very first time knowing such network storage services could be provisioned with an appliance concept. This was different from Sun. I was used to managing NFS exports on a Sun SPARCstation 20 to Unix clients in the network.

Secondly, my mindset began to shape that “you have to have the right tool to the job correctly and extremely well“. Well, the toaster toasts bread very well and nothing else. And the fridge (an analogy used by Dave Hitz, I think) does what it does very well too. That is what the appliance does. You definitely cannot grill a steak with a bread toaster, just like you can’t run an excellent, ultra-high performance storage services to serve the demanding AI and HPC applications on a general server platform. You have to have a storage appliance solution for High-Speed Storage.

That little Network Appliance® toaster award given out to exemplary employees stood vividly in my mind. The NetApp® tagline back then was “Fast, Simple, Reliable”. That solidifies my mindset for the high-speed storage in AI and HPC projects in present times.

DDN AI400X2 Turbo Appliance

Costs Benefits and Risks

I like to think about what the end users are thinking about. There are investments costs involved, and along with it, risks to the investments as well as their benefits. Let’s just simplify and lump them into Cost-Benefits-Risk analysis triangle. These variables come into play in the decision making of AI and HPC projects.

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Is Software Defined right for Storage?

By cfheoh | April 19, 2021 - 9:00 am |April 18, 2021 Acquisition, API, Appliance, ATA over Ethernet, Ceph, Composable Infrastructure, Coraid, Cray Inc, Data Direct Networks, Deduplication, deduplication, Filesystems, FreeNAS, Gluster, HDS, High Performance Computing, HPE Simplivity, Hyperconvergence, Infiniband, Intel, iXsystems, Liqid, Mellanox Technologies, Minio, NetApp, Nexenta, Nutanix, nVidia, OpenIO, Openstack, Oracle, PCIe, Performance Benchmark, Performance Caching, Pure Storage, RAID, RDMA, Redhat, Simplivity, SNIA, SoftIron, Software Defined Storage, Solaris, Solid State Devices, Storage Optimization, TrueNAS, Vast Data, Virtualization

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George Herbert Leigh Mallory, mountaineer extraordinaire, was once asked “Why did you want to climb Mount Everest?“, in which he replied “Because it’s there“. That retort demonstrated the indomitable human spirit and probably exemplified best the relationship between the human being’s desire to conquer the physical limits of nature. The software of humanity versus the hardware of the planet Earth.

Juxtaposing, similarities can be said between software and hardware in computer systems, in storage technology per se. In it, there are a few schools of thoughts when it comes to delivering storage services with the notable ones being the storage appliance model and the software-defined storage model.

There are arguments, of course. Some are genuinely partisan but many a times, these arguments come in the form of the flavour of the moment. I have experienced in my past companies touting the storage appliance model very strongly in the beginning, and only to be switching to a “software company” chorus years after that. That was what I meant about the “flavour of the moment”.

Software Defined Storage

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The prudence needed for storage technology companies

By cfheoh | August 3, 2020 - 9:15 am |August 2, 2020 Acquisition, Actifio, Amazon Web Services, Apple, Blitzscaling, Cloud, Cloudian, Clumio, Cohesity, Data Direct Networks, Datrium, Digital Transformation, Druva, Falconstor, Forrester, Gartner, Google, Huawei, Hyperconvergence, Kaminario, Nasuni, Nutanix, Pure Storage, Qumulo, Rubrik, SolidFire, Tegile, Tintri, Vast Data, Veeam, Veritas, Violin Memory, VMware, WekaIO

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Blitzscaling has been on my mind a lot. Ever since I discovered that word a while back, it has returned time and time again to fill my thoughts. In the wake of COVID-19, and in the mire of this devastating pandemic, is blitzscaling still the right strategy for this generation of storage technology, hyperconverged, data management and cloud storage startups?

What the heck is Blitzscaling?

For the uninformed, here’s a video of Reid Hoffman, co-founder of Linked and a member of the Paypal mafia, explaining Blitzscaling.

Blitzscaling is about hyper growing, scaling ultra fast and rocketing to escape velocity, at the expense of things like management efficiency, financial prudence, profits and others. While this blog focuses on storage companies, blitzscaling is probably most recognizable in the massive expansion of Uber (and contraction) a few years ago. In the US, the ride hailing war is between Uber and Lyft, but over here in South East Asia, just a few years back, it was between Uber and Grab. In China it was Uber and Didi.

From the storage angle, 2 segments exemplified the blitzscaling culture between 2015 and 2020.

All Flash Startups
Hyper Converged Infrastructure Startups

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The True Value of TrueNAS CORE

By cfheoh | July 20, 2020 - 9:00 am |July 21, 2020 Appliance, BeeGFS, CIFS, Clusters, Data Direct Networks, Datto, Filesystems, FreeNAS, High Performance Computing, iXsystems, Joyent, Linux, Lustre, NAS, NetApp, Nexenta, NFS, Pure Storage, QNAP, Scale-out architecture, Software Defined Storage, Tegile, TrueNAS

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A funny thing came up on my Twitter feed last week. There was an ongoing online voting battle pitting FreeNAS™ (now shall be known as TrueNAS® CORE) against Unraid. I wasn’t aware of it before that and I would not comment about Unraid because I have no experience with the software. But let me share with you my philosophy and my thoughts why I would choose TrueNAS® CORE over Unraid and of course TrueNAS® Enterprise along with it. We have to bear in mind that TrueNAS® SCALE is in development and will soon be here next year in 2021.

The new TrueNAS CORE logo

The real proving grounds

I have been in enterprise storage for a long time. If I were to count the days I entered the industry, that was more than 28 years ago. When people talked about their first PC (personal computer), they would say Atari or Commodore 64, or something retro that was meant for home use. Not me.

My first computer I was affiliated with was a SUN SPARC®station 2 (SS2). I took it home (from the company I was working with), opened it apart, and learned about the SBUS. My computer life started with a technology that was meant for the businesses, for the enterprise. Heck, I even installed and supported a few of the Sun E10000 for 2 years when I was with Sun Microsystems. Since that SS2, my pursuit of knowledge, experience and worldview evolved around storage technologies for the enterprise.

Open source software has also always interested me. I tried a few file systems including Lustre®, that parallel file system that powered some of the world’s supercomputers and I am a certified BeeGFS® Systems Engineer too. In the end, for me, and for many, the real proving grounds isn’t on personal and home use. It is about a storage systems and an OS that are built for the enterprise.

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Whither HPC, HPE?

By cfheoh | May 26, 2019 - 8:07 pm |May 26, 2019 Acquisition, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Business Continuity, Cloud, Cloudian, Cohesity, Commvault, Cray Inc, Data Archiving, Data Direct Networks, Data Management, Data Protection, Datera, Deep Learning, Filesystems, High Performance Computing, HPE, HPE Simplivity, Hyperconvergence, Machine Learning, NAS, Nexenta, Object Storage, Qumulo, Scale-out architecture, Server SAN, Simplivity, Tintri, WekaIO, Zerto

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HPE is acquiring Cray Inc. Almost 3 years ago, HPE acquired SGI. Back in 2017, HPE partnered WekaIO, and invested big in the latest Series C funding of WekaIO just weeks ago.

Cray, SGI and WekaIO are all strong HPC technology companies. Given the strong uptick in the HPC market, especially commercial HPC, we cannot deny HPE’s ambition to become the top SuperComputing and HPC vendor in the industry. Continue reading →

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