When server virtualization first hit the mainstream, the primary concerns were associated with general efficiency and most of the applications were relatively lightweight and not I/O-heavy. At this point SAN was the dominant choice but with increasing virtualization complexity, this began to wear on the old model. While there have been efforts underway (particularly by VMware) to remedy the complexity issues, these have not provided the same degree of flexibility and efficiency as Network Attached Storage (NAS). With the dramatic rise in clouds of all types, NAS needs to be further explored as one of the best cloud storage paradigms since NAS is inherently scalable, especially in a high-performance enviornment.
The Future of Cloud Storage is NAS
May 12, 2010