SDS

Definition

Software-Defined Storage (SDS) decouples storage software from proprietary hardware, allowing storage services (provisioning, replication, snapshots, tiering) to run on commodity servers. SDS platforms include Ceph, VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, NetApp ONTAP Select, and MinIO. SDS enables flexible scaling, hardware independence, and automation-driven operations across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

Written by
Daniel Kovacs

Updated Feb 11, 2026

Ansible

An open-source IT automation tool for configuration management and orchestration, widely used for HPC cluster and data center provisioning.

BeeGFS

A high-performance parallel file system with distributed metadata, simple administration, and built-in high availability for HPC and AI workloads.

Burst Buffer

A fast intermediate storage layer using NVMe SSDs that absorbs I/O bursts between compute nodes and the parallel file system.

Ceph

An open-source distributed storage platform providing unified object, block, and file storage with automatic data distribution and self-healing capabilities.

CXL

Compute Express Link â€” an open interconnect standard enabling high-speed communication and memory sharing between CPUs, accelerators, and memory devices.

Data Lake

A centralized repository storing raw data in its native format at scale, supporting diverse analytics workloads from batch to real-time processing.