Mark Carlson, Toshiba, Alex McDonald, NetApp, Saqib Jang, Chelsio, John Kim, Mellanox
File vs. Block vs. Object Storage
When it comes to storage, a byte is a byte is a byte, isn’t it?
One of the enduring truths about simplicity is that scale makes everything hard, and with that comes complexity. And when we’re not processing the data, how do we store it and access it?
The only way to manage large quantities of data is to make it addressable in larger pieces, above the byte level. For that, we’ve designed sets of data management protocols that help us do several things: address large lumps of data by some kind of name or handle, organize it for storage on external storage devices with different characteristics, and provide protocols that allow us to programmatically write and read it.
In this webcast, we'll compare three types of data access: file, block and object storage, and the access methods that support them. Each has its own use cases, and advantages and disadvantages; each provides simple to sophisticated data management; and each makes different demands on storage devices and programming technologies.
Perhaps you’re comfortable with block and file, but are interested in investigating the more recent class of object storage and access. Perhaps you’re happy with your understanding of objects, but would really like to understand files better, and what advantages or disadvantages they have compared to each other. Or perhaps you want to understand how file, block and object are implemented on the underlying storage systems – and how one can be made to look like the other, depending on how the storage is accessed. Join us as we discuss and debate:
Storage devices
oHow different types of storage drive different management & access solutions
Block
oWhere everything is in fixed-size chunks
oSCSI and SCSI-based protocols, and how FC and iSCSI fit in
Files
oWhen everything is a stream of bytes
oNFS and SMB
Objects
oWhen everything is a blob
oHTTP, key value and RESTful interfaces
Altogether…
oWhen files, blocks and objects collide