VMware Users Still Favor FC over NFS, 10 G Ethernet Survey Shows
VMware has always tried to remain agnostic toward storage area network (SAN) protocols, writes Wikibon Analyst Stuart Miniman in his Professional Alert “VMware vSphere 5 Users Move Beyond the Storage Protocol Debate”. Wikibon’s just published 2012 VMware user survey did, however, ask what storage network protocols its respondents are using.
With the growth in Big Data use, the association of the Network Attached Storage (NAS) Network File System (NFS) protocol with VMware, and the advent of 10G Ethernet with speeds that match or exceed that of Fiber Channel (FC), some experts believe that the market is beginning to shift away from FC, which has dominated SANs for a decade.
If so, the survey gave no indication of an impending change. The survey allowed respondents to check multiple choices of network protocols. Some 67% checked off FC, with 51% choosing NFS, and 47%, iSCSI. What is perhaps more interesting is that only 12% indicated plans to increase NFS use greatly, with 40% planning a slight increase and 9% planning to decrease NFS in their environments.
Miniman sees this as indication of a deemphasis on network protocols in favor of deploying infrastructure based on application requirements and acknowledges that the FC vs Ethernet question will take years to play out in the market. However, the good news for VMware users is that the virtualization technology will not restrict their choices.
SiliconAngle and Wikibon will webcast live from the Cube at next week’s VMworld 2012 conference Monday, August 27 through Thursday, August 30. Top executives from VMware including Gelsinger, Co-President Tod Nielsen, and CTO Steve Herrod, and Trintri’s Kieran Harty and Nimble Storage’s Suresh Vasudelvan, are among the many industry leaders scheduled for live interviews. These and many other interviews will be shown live on www.siliconangle.tv and will be well worth watching.
Like all Wikibon community research, this Professional Alert is available in its entirety without charge on the Wikibon.org Web site. Interested IT professionals are invited to register on the Wikibon site, which allows them to read, correct, and comment on this and other Wikibon research as well as receive Wikibon’s Peer Incite announcements and newsletters.
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