When it comes to storage solutions and technology, there are two acronyms that you may stumble upon a lot. Although you may have already heard about SAN and NAS, there are two other storage solution technologies that are becoming more widely used because they address the limitations that traditional storage systems have. If you’ve never heard of SDS and SDN before, we’re here to give a short breakdown of what SDN and SDS is.
SDN stands for Software-Defined Networking. SDN is an architecture that covers various types of network technology and refers to the virtualization of the server network where the software and hardware can run separate from one another. In order to respond to modern day storage needs, SDN enables administrators to quickly respond to changing requirements in a centralized location using software applications. With SDN, administrators can easily manage the entirety of the network and its resources, allowing administrators to pull the network resources necessary to deploy various services to different parts of the network.
SDS stands for Software-Defined Storage. SDS is a system that manages data storage resources and creates storage networks using those resources – all without the need to rely on the storage hardware. SDS is designed to be a more capable replacement over traditional storage systems such as SAN (storage area network) and NAS (network attached storage), both of which require software and hardware. In SDS, the software can be updated separately from the hardware. SDS products are known for their scalability because all the storage resources and pools can be managed in one place to control/set the functionality and programmability of storage features.
Virtualization as a whole has become more and more widely accepted for modern day storage, data and computing. Many things have become virtualized including desktops, severs, storage and more. Both SDS and SDN rely upon virtualized infrastructures for more flexibility and functionality. SDN and SDS are two separate concepts that are both relatively new. Programmability, scalability, and cost-effectiveness have all been pointed out as the benefits of using SDN and/or SDS technology. Since SDN and SDS are still relatively new, it will be interesting to see how these two technologies will develop and potentially work together in the future as storage technology continues to innovate.