Storage Technology Trends

Foreword

● Data carries information during the transmission on networks. What is the

relationship between information and data? What is the function of data
storage? This course describes the definitions of information and data in the
computer field, their relationship, as well as the concept, development history,
and development trend of data storage.

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 Objectives

On completion of this course, you will be able to understand:

🞐 Definitions of information and data

🞐 Concept of data storage

🞐 Development history of data storage

🞐 Development trend of data storage products

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 Contents

1. Data and Information

2. Data Storage
3. Development of Storage Technologies
4. Development Trend of Storage Products

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What is Data
● SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association) defines data as the digital
representation of anything in any form.
Format in which data is stored
Email 0101001010100010000011
11000111000100011100011
1000001111010101001010
Digital music 1010010101001010010101
0010101010010101000101
0100101010010101010100
Digital video
1010101010100101000100
1010010101010101001010
Ebook 1010010101010101001010
1010100101001010010001
010101001001010010010

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Data Types

Semi-
Structured structured Unstructured
data data data

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Data Processing Cycle
● Data processing is the reorganization or reordering of data by humans or
machines to increase their specific value. A data processing cycle includes
three basic steps: input, processing, and output.

Input Processing Output

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What is Information
● Information is processed, structured, or
rendered in a given context to make it Inform
Processin ation
meaningful and useful. g

● Information is processed data, including

D
data with context, relevance, and at
purpose. It also involves the manipulation
of raw data.
a Data
Redun
dancy

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Data vs. Information
● After being processed, data can be converted into information.

● In order to be stored and transmitted in IT systems, information needs to be

processed as data.

Item Data Information

Raw and meaningless, with no
Feature Valuable and logical
specific purpose
Essence Original materials Processed data
Dependence Data never depends on information Information depends on data
Meteorological data or satellite image
Example Weather forecasts
data

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Information Lifecycle Management
● Information lifecycle management (ILM) refers to a set of management theories
and methods from the stage in which the information is generated and initially
stored to the stage where the information is obsoletely deleted.

Data value

Data Data Data Data Data Data

creation protection access migration archiving destruction

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 Contents

1. Data and Information

2. Data Storage
3. Development of Storage Technologies
4. Development Trend of Storage Products

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What is Data Storage
Storage in a narrow sense Storage in a broad sense

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Data Storage System

● Disaster recovery (DR) solutions

● Backup solutions

● Storage management software

Solution
s ● Snapshot and mirroring software
● Backup software
● Multipathing software
Storage software
● Storage devices ● Connection elements
🞐 Disk array 🞐 HBA cards
🞐 Tape library 🞐 Switches
🞐 Virtual tape library 🞐 Cables
Storage hardware
🞐… 🞐…

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Physical Structure of Storage
Hosts

Network switching devices NAS gateway

Storage application
software
Front-end boards of
controllers

Cache
Storage
System Back-end boards of Storage management
controllers software

Connectors

Disks

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Data Storage Types

Internal DAS SAN

Storage

Storage FAS NAS

External Object
Storage Storage

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Evolution of Data Management Technologies
Scale-out
Dedicated storage device
storage device

Tape and single

disk
Big data
management
Traditional
Card and paper database
tape File system system
management management

Manual
management

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Data Storage Application

Database servers
Users
Application
servers

Email servers
Offline
Online storage Nearline storage
storage
File servers
Employees
Classification based on data access frequencies

Data Data Data management

generation processing

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 Contents

1. Data and Information

2. Data Storage
3. Development of Storage Technologies
■ Storage Architecture

▫ Storage Media

▫ Interface Protocols

4. Development Trend of Storage Products

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History of Storage Architecture Development

2000s
1990s • Scale-out storage
• Storage • Cloud storage
1980s network
• External
storage
1950s
• Traditional
storage

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From Disks to Disk Arrays

Disks in a server Early external storage Storage arrays

Server Server Server

CPU CPU CPU

RAM RAM RAM

Disks Disks Disks

JBO
Controllers
D

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From Separation to Convergence

SA NA Clients Unified
N S Storage
Serve Serve
r r
Ethernet
File
system Serve
r
SA LA
N N
File NAS SA
system N
Storage Storage
File
system
Storage

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Scale-out Storage
● Physical resources are organized
using software to form a high-
Front-end
performance logical storage pool, service
network Management
ensuring reliability and providing network

multiple storage services.

● Generally, scale-out storage scatters

data to multiple independent storage
servers in a scalable system structure. It
...
uses those storage servers to share
storage loads and uses location servers Node Node Node Node

to locate storage information. Back-end storage network

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Storage Virtualization
● Storage virtualization consolidates the Clients or
servers
storage devices into logical
resources, thereby providing
comprehensive and unified storage Management
services.
Logical resources
● Unified functions are provided
regardless of different storage forms
Virtualization
and device types.
Physical resources

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Cloud Storage
● The cloud storage system combines multiple storage devices, applications, and services. It
uses highly virtualized multi-tenant infrastructure to provide scalable storage resources for
enterprises. Those storage resources can be dynamically configured based on organization
requirements.
Legacy New
applications applications

Protocol and interface

Converged
Elastic Block storage service File storage service Object storage service

Open Storage device and storage node

Universal hardware platforms

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 Contents

1. Data and Information

2. Data Storage
3. Development of Storage Technologies
▫ Storage Architecture

■ Storage Media

▫ Interface Protocols

4. Development Trend of Storage Products

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History of HDDs
● Larger capacity with the smaller size.

1950s–1960s 1960s–1970s 1970s–1980s 1980s-1990s 1990s-

Giant disk 14-inch disk 8-inch disk Portable Microdrive

IBM 350 IBM 3340 Disks started to 5.25-inch 1.8-inch

RAMAC enter the civil 3.5-inch Hitachi: 1-inch
IBM 1301 market. 2.5-inch Toshiba: 0.85-
inch
...

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History of SSDs
● Solid-state drives (SSDs) were invented almost as early as HDDs, but were not
popular at that time due to its high price and the rapid development of HDDs at the
end of the 20th century.
● With the requirement for high access speed, SSDs are booming.

• Bell Labs 1976 • SanDisk 1999 • Samsung 2010…

• Floating gate • Dataram sold launched flash • BiTMICRO released • Lower costs
transistor Bulk Core. SSDs. launched flash laptops using • Greater
• 2 MB capacity • 20 MB capacity SSDs. SSDs.
capacity
• 18 GB capacity • 32 GB capacity
1967 1991 2006

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Development of Flash Memory

Single-level cell Triple-level cell Quad-level cell

(SLC): fast (TLC): mature (QLC): larger and
read/write and mainstream cheaper, applicable
long service life technology to warm data

Multi-level cell 3D TLC: improves SCM: with the access

the storage density speed slightly slower than
(MLC): moderate
through multi-layer memory, but much faster
read/write speed than NAND media
overlaying
and service life

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Storage Class Memory (SCM)
● Storage class memory (SCM) is non-volatile memory, which is slightly slower than memory but much
faster than NAND in terms of the access speed.
● There are various types of SCM media under development, but the mainstream SCM media are
PCRAM, ReRAM, MRAM, and NRAM.

Current Storage Technology SCM

DRAM NAND Flash PCRAM ReRAM MRAM NRAM
Non-volatility No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Read latency 10–60 ns 25 μs 48 ns < 10 ns < 10 ns < 30 ns
Write latency 10–60 ns 200 μs 40–150 ns ~ 10 ns 12.5 ns 50 ns
Erasable times > 1015 104 108 105 > 1015 > 1014
Addressing unit Byte Page Byte Byte Byte Byte

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 Contents

1. Data and Information

2. Data Storage
3. Development of Storage Technologies
▫ Storage Architecture

▫ Storage Media

■ Interface Protocols

4. Development Trend of Storage Products

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Interface Protocols
● Disk interfaces connect disks to hosts.

● Interface protocols refer to the communication modes and requirements that

interfaces for exchanging information must comply with.

Parallel interface Serial interface

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History of Interface Protocols

100G NVMe-oF 400G

Ethernet NVMe-oF 1.0 (FC-NVMe) Ethernet
Host interface (RDMA) NVMe-oF 1.1
(TCP) 64G FC
2G FC iSCSI 4G FC 8G FC 16G FC 32G FC

The first-gen FC
protocol was 2004 2008 2012 2016 2017 2018 2020
released in 1994.
…

SATA 1.0
Disk interface SATA 3.0
4G FC
SAS 1.0 SAS 2.0 SAS 3.0 SAS 4.0
SATA 2.0

NVMe 1.0 NVMe 1.2 NVMe 1.3 NVMe 1.4

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NVMe and NVMe-oF
● NVMe, Non-Volatile Memory Express
🞐 Improves the performance CPU CPU

🞐 Reduces the latency PCIe PCIe

● NVMe-oF, NVMe over Fabrics
SAS Controller
🞐 Potential: low latency and high
SAS Expander
bandwidth
🞐 Purpose: accelerates the data
transmission among the storage network NVMe back-end SAS back-end
physical path physical path

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 Contents

1. Data and Information

2. Data Storage
3. Development of Storage Technologies
4. Development Trend of Storage Products

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History of Storage Products

Clou
Media d
HDD SSD

Architecture Trend
Centralized Scale-out

All- Intelligenc
flash e
Management
Manual O&M Intelligent O&M

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The Intelligence Era is Coming

Steam Age Electricity Age Information Age Intelligence Age

Industry Cloud Service extension

computing AI
Network coordination
Agriculture
+ Data + Intelligence
Internet
IoT
Intelligent production

Service Big data Customization

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Challenges to Data Storage
Time-consuming RAID
24/7 µs-level
Always-on Real-time, high-speed
reconstruction services for all processing of production
Service things connected transactions in the 5G era
interruption due to
multiple points of
failure Finance High disk
failure rate Reliable Fast

Gov & Public Large

enterprise
Low data
deduplication and
compression ratios
Large Efficient
Carrier Transportation

Unstable latency EB-level TCO reduction

Energy & Electricity Data monetized as
under high Edge-center-cloud
assets and intelligent synergy, minimizing
Inefficient convergence of concurrency storage tiering, turning the per-bit data cost
block, file, and object cold data to warm data and maximizing the
services to mine data value value

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Characteristics of Storage in the Intelligence Era
Storage in the intelligence
era
Intelligent data lifecycle
management
Storage for AI AI in storage

Data convergence
Zero data migration Data collaboration
Convergence of Simplified protocol stack and data-
SAN and NAS storage convergence
Intelligent storage tiering of hot, Compute-storage collaboration, on-
warm, and, cold data demand capacity expansion
Multi-service convergence (block, Dedicated hardware and scale-
file, and object) out storage
Hardware + Algorithm + Architecture = Efficient storage
Robust reliability Large capacity High performance
Device-level of 99.99999% PB-level to EB-level ms-level to µs-level
System-level of 99.999% Efficient deduplication & Intelligent distributed cache
compression
Solution-level reliability + Cost-effective media, warm and High-speed protocols and
Cloud-level DR cold data storage algorithms
Minimum cost and maximum value for per-bit data

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Data Storage Trend
Scale-out
storage

Database Cloud
applications Blockchain
computing Storage in AI
Mainframe
the
system Hyper- Big data intelligence
Private software Traditional
and hardware external
converged
infrastructure
era
5G
solutions with fully storage (HCI) General-
coupled compute, purpose
storage, and Brain-like
computing DNA Graph
network Tensor computing
resources, VM Container computing computing computing
x86 Ro
applicable only to
CX HC
large CE
L CS
organizations / Qu
IP NV ant
FC SAS IB
PC Me MR um
M AM dot
HDD SSD Bio Opt
mol ical
ecu stor
le age

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Optical Storage Technology

Blu-ray storage Gold nanostructured glass

Long service High 100 GB+ per Low power Long-term 10 TB per
life reliability disk consumption stable storage disk

50 years >>> 600 years

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DNA Data Storage
● A small number of synthetic DNA molecules can store a large amount of data,
and can freeze, dry, transport, and store data for thousands of years.
● Advantages of using DNA as storage media:
🞐 Small size

🞐 High density

🞐 Strong stability

● Bottlenecks and limitations:

🞐 High costs of DNA molecular synthesis

🞐 Slow data read and search

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Atomic Storage
● In 1959, physicist Richard Feynman suggested that it was possible to use atoms to store
information if they could be arranged the way we wanted.

● Because an atom is so small, the capacity of atomic storage will be much larger than that of
existing storage media in the same size.

● With the development of science and technology, arranging the atoms the way we want has become
a reality.

● Bottlenecks and limitations:

🞐 Strict requirements on the operating environment

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Quantum Storage
● Now, information in electronic devices is stored and moved through the flow of electrons.

● If electrons are replaced by photons, the movement of information within a computer may occur
at the speed of light.

● Although the storage efficiency and service life are improved, the quantum storage is still difficult
to be widely applied at present.

● Quantum storage cannot meet the following requirements:

🞐 High storage efficiency

🞐 Low noise

🞐 Long service life

🞐 Operating at room temperature

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Storage Network Trend
AS-IS TO-BE
FC SAN and IP Converged AI Fabric network
SAN
High network costs: The FC private network has low latency but high Reduced network costs: Open Ethernet carries high-performance, low-
costs. The IP SAN has low costs but high latency and poor latency, and low-cost storage networks.
performance. Reduced O&M costs: No dedicated O&M skills are required, and unified
High O&M costs: IP SAN and FC SAN require dedicated O&M personnel network management is supported for data centers.
separately, and do not support cloud-and-network synergy.

LAN Flexibility
Eth
Flexibility
No packet loss
NIC NIC
FC FC Low latency
SAN SAN
IP SAN IP SAN
10G
IP FC Eth
16G FC iNIC iNIC
SAN SA
N SAN
10G IP SAN
Low Low latency
cost Ethernet

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History of Huawei Storage Products
2021
2019
2017 First high-end OceanProtect
2015 Huawei OceanStor storage
2013 all-scenario
2nd-gen high-end Dorado, fastest all- accelerated by AI
2011 data protection
storage flash storage chips
2008 1st-gen high- solution
2006 Launched self- end storage
2002 Launched 2 -
nd developed Interop Best
Released SmartMatrix
Dived into self- gen FC storage. HSSDs, pioneer architecture Best-in-class of of Show
storage developed Founded Huawei in the all-flash the year Award
technical IP SAN Symantec Co., industry
research Ltd.

Start out Grow Lead

Released self-
Launched developed Scale-out Huawei
FC storage virtual storage clustered Launched T OceanStor V3
2003 NAS storage series New-gen
2007 unified storage First SAN&NAS Leader in Gartner Industry's first hybrid
2009 converged Magic Quadrant for full-series flash
2012 storage Huawei
the first time NVMe all-flash OceanStor storage
2014
2016 storage Pacific series OceanStor
2018 6.x
2020
2022

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 Quiz
1. (Choose multiple options) Which of the following are data types?
A. Structured data

B. Semi-structured data

C. Unstructured data

D. Massive amounts of data

2. (Choose multiple options) Which of the following statements about storage are correct?
A. Storage refers to disks.

B. A storage system consists of storage hardware, software, and solutions.

C. Storage types include block storage, file storage, and object storage.

D. File storage is used to store data of data applications.

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 Quiz
3. (Choose multiple options) Which of the following are characteristics of cloud storage?
A. Convergence

B. Open

C. Elasticity

D. Scale-up

4. (Choose multiple options) Which of the following are the objectives of integrating AI into storage?
A. Simple

B. Efficient

C. High power consumption

D. Easy to use

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 Summar
y
Data and Information

Data Storage Storage Architecture

Trend of Storage
Technologies
Storage Technologies Storage Media

Storage Products Interface Protocols

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 Recommendation
s
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🞐 Technical support: https://support.huawei.com/enterprise/en/index.html

🞐 Online learning: https://www.huawei.com/en/learning

● Popular tools
🞐 HedEx Lite

🞐 Network Document Tool Center

🞐 Information Query Assistant

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每个组织，构建万物互联的智能世界。
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Copyright©2022 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
All Rights Reserved.

The information in this document may contain predictive

statements including, without limitation, statements regarding
the future financial and operating results, future product
portfolio, new technology, etc. There are a number of factors that
could cause actual results and developments to differ materially
from those expressed or implied in the predictive statements.
Therefore, such information is provided for reference purpose
only and constitutes neither an offer nor an acceptance. Huawei
may change the information at any time without notice.