In reply to Jeff Darcy.

These are excellent comments, Jeff. I agree with everything you've said here. My 'network centric' focus is there for 2 specific reasons (3, if you count that this is the area I'm the most familiar ;):

First, in the conversations of SDS, both the storage-side approaches and the application/compute-side approaches neglect the storage network. Either it's a complete omission (as in the case of Microsoft) or treat it like a hypothetical. Remember high school physics class? Where you're supposed to "assume a frictionless environment?" It's a lot like that, where you "assume a reliable storage network." I wanted to ensure that people realize that the storage component is more than where the data is, but also how the data gets from one place to the other.

Second, I really do think that there is a major difference between defining a storage system and merely implementing one. We have management systems in place for the re-arranging of bits on a wire, just like we have management systems for access to those bits. Those are all 'software managed,' which doesn't even get us to the realm of 'software-implemented,' let alone 'software-defined.' I think that by ignoring any of the various links in the chain we risk doing ourselves a disservice.

For that reason I agree with you 100% that "changing protocols or tweaking layer-two attributes is missing all the problems that storage people need to worry about." The network piece is just one of several moving parts, and without question cannot be seen as either the lynchpin or superfluous. Instead, it's part of an ecosystem.

That being said, i think you are spot-on with your inclusion of the various elements of timing (microseconds v. seconds. v. days v. weeks, etc.). This is the longitudinal element that I was discussing as well (but didn't go into it very much; brevity was not on my side for this post as it was!).

I do believe there is potential for true change in the paradigm, here. It's for that reason that I'm glad that we're opening up the dialogue beyond just the marketing terminology to ask whether or not we are really accomplishing anything or just adding on another block to the Rube Goldberg design of 'software-defined-X'.

Thanks for writing!