topic SDS in Object Storage

SDS

Bios — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 09:43:34 GMT

Hi everybody,

I have a question,

What are differences between SDS and object storage?

Is SDS an object-based storage?

For example VMware vSAN, Red Hat Ceph Storage are SDS and object Storage.

Thanks,

Re: SDS

Ontapforrum — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 12:29:58 GMT

As per the definitions and the article below. SDS is about 'freeing storage from infrastructure' (More of an application/software layer), managing on-premise & Cloud with single interface without worrying about the underlying hardware. Also about integrating on-premise to cloud seamlessly. It is basically about creating an abstraction layer above the different types of the storages then be able to deploy/scale seamlessly by making storage resources programmable. It dosen't care about the underlying storage hardware, it could be object or block, it will use it as the requirement drives it. For example : NetAppStorageGRID is a software-defined object storage solution.

https://www.netapp.com/data-management/workflow-automation/what-is-software-defined-storage/#:~:text=Software%2Ddefined%20storage%20(SDS),by%20making%20storage%20resources%20programmable.

https://bluexp.netapp.com/blog/software-defined-storage-transforming-hybrid-cloud

Re: SDS

elementx — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 16:26:28 GMT

SDS may offer object storage services.

But it doesn't necessarily need to do that.

In a narrow sense, software-defined means it can be configured through an API.

In a broader sense it is assumed that such software can run on industry standard hardware, i.e. does not require proprietary hardware.

Now even proprietary hardware is designed to be configured through an API, but early on proprietary hardware didn't have an API, which is why the original narrow meaning was storage exposed through an open and documented API.

Some ONTAP SDS provides object storage services (Storage GRID and ONTAP), but as I said at the top, that's not strictly necessary and many SDS don't offer S3 or other object storage.

Re: SDS

Bios — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 10:49:16 GMT

Thank for your response.