Comments on: New Windows Azure goes all-SSD to one-up Amazon in the cloud http://gigaom.com/2012/06/05/new-windows-azure-goes-all-ssd-to-one-up-amazon-in-the-cloud/ Tue, 21 May 2013 08:39:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: guest http://gigaom.com/2012/06/05/new-windows-azure-goes-all-ssd-to-one-up-amazon-in-the-cloud/#comment-850518 Mon, 11 Jun 2012 02:55:33 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=529110#comment-850518 Windows Azure also reduced their price of storage transactions by 10x, which is orders of magnitude cheaper than AWS

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazurestorage/archive/2012/06/08/10x-price-reduction-for-windows-azure-storage-transactions.aspx

]]> By: Barb Darrow http://gigaom.com/2012/06/05/new-windows-azure-goes-all-ssd-to-one-up-amazon-in-the-cloud/#comment-849154 Thu, 07 Jun 2012 12:43:38 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=529110#comment-849154 me too. All i know now is SSD block storage. will ask around

]]> By: josephjpeters http://gigaom.com/2012/06/05/new-windows-azure-goes-all-ssd-to-one-up-amazon-in-the-cloud/#comment-848972 Thu, 07 Jun 2012 00:31:40 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=529110#comment-848972 I had heard that OCZ was working with Microsoft but had no idea what the service was. I’d like to know myself. I’m curious to know the type of SSD being used. Is it SAS/SATA or PCIe?

]]> By: Robert Jenkins http://gigaom.com/2012/06/05/new-windows-azure-goes-all-ssd-to-one-up-amazon-in-the-cloud/#comment-848568 Wed, 06 Jun 2012 06:05:20 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=529110#comment-848568 It is great to see some movement and product development happening in the IaaS space as ever.

SSD storage is critical to moving core systems into the cloud however it needs to be delivered as part of a tiered storage approach. That means having a flexible implementation of IaaS itself which enables customers to easily tailor on a server by server resources and storage types just as customers would do in dedicated hardware.

Customers can and should retain the same degree of control over their infrastructure in the cloud as they have on dedicated hardware. Some questions customers should consider:
- can I purchase resources unbundled and customise my infrastructure on a server by server basis? i.e. no resource bundling, no fixed server sizes
- does the fundamental IaaS implementation contain the baked in flexibility to support flexible cloud infrastructure deployments? For example, can I mount multiple drives of different storage types to a server?
- am I billed in a granular way based on the resources I am assigning to servers?
- can I flexibly buy resources over time in a dynamic way? For example, if I need to add a couple of GBs of RAM to my database server, can I do it? What is the provisioning delay? Am I forced to upgrade to a much bigger server causing over-provisioning?

For SSDs we have offered these since Q4 2011 and they are very popular however most customers deploy them in a tiered strategy. Namely they will mount a smaller SSD drive and move key parts of their storage to that drive that require low latency and high IO throughput whilst retaining the bulk of storage on cheaper magnetics. The key is to match storage type to storage need which gives customers purchasing efficiency.

Flexibility combined with granular billing and efficient purchasing equals amazing PRICE/PERFORMANCE which is the relevant metric here. Our cloud is designed to delivery a virtual data center to customers building out cloud infrastructure. SSDs are definitely part of that story and it is frankly surprising why they aren’t more widely offered by IaaS clouds.

Best wishes,

Robert

–
Robert Jenkins
CTO
CloudSigma
http://www.cloudsigma.com/blog

]]> By: Roman Tarnavski http://gigaom.com/2012/06/05/new-windows-azure-goes-all-ssd-to-one-up-amazon-in-the-cloud/#comment-848495 Wed, 06 Jun 2012 01:42:47 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=529110#comment-848495 differentiating with technology that is available to everyone, is a bit of a moot point.

]]> By: guest http://gigaom.com/2012/06/05/new-windows-azure-goes-all-ssd-to-one-up-amazon-in-the-cloud/#comment-848450 Tue, 05 Jun 2012 23:18:06 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=529110#comment-848450 Any idea whose SSD’s they’re using?

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