The Advantages of Moving from Networked Storage to Virtual Software Layers
Most virtualized environments today face several challenges in managing their storage and associated workloads. Shared storage or networked storage, which is a pre-requisite for utilizing many of the benefits of server virtualization, is expensive, time consuming, and also requires specialized skills for provisioning storage and managing storage components such as volumes, LUNs, file systems, and RAID.
In recent years, alternative approaches to networked storage, such as virtual storage appliance (VSA) distributed file systems and Hadoop for Big Data environments have emerged, but these alternatives have their own limitations when it comes to scalability and improved performance, especially in virtualized environments. Virtualized environments require that compute resources be allocated on-demand, hence requiring storage to also be allocated dynamically.
The new buzzword in the storage world today is Software Defined Storage (SdS). SdS abstracts storage from hardware to enable pooling, replication, and on-demand distribution, thus reducing the complexities of most traditional network storage systems. The result is a storage layer that is aggregated, flexible, efficient, and easily scalable. The storage layer is expressed as layered software, running in virtual machines, on pools of industry-standard servers.
Besides significant CAPEX savings, Software Defined Storage provides numerous benefits. It greatly simplifies IT and allows organizations to control the deployment, provisioning, and management of data through software. It provides openness, enabling industry standard hardware to be used. It works with all major protocols and allows for a broader range of cloud-computing services at much lower costs. SdS allows for resources to be used efficiently and eases management due to integration of software entities versus isolated physical ones. It provides an agile environment due to the ability to quickly react quickly to new requirements. The IT team as an integral part of their workflow can dynamically specify required storage resources. It eliminates the need to forecast and manage different networked and physical storage resource pools.
Software Defined Storage helps make the entire IT infrastructure completely fluid and is clearly the missing link in delivering on a software-defined data center.
Vedams was able to bring the necessary expertise and resources to meet our business objectives. What I like the most is its flexibility in their business model to meet our needs.
Our partnership with Vedams has been highly successful. The Vedams team is extremely productive and dedicated to ensuring success. Their willingness to go above and beyond has resulted in consistently meeting schedules with high quality releases despite several challenges that needed to be overcome.
They conduct their work and business relationship with the highest degree of honesty and integrity.
Vedams is a highly valuable addition to Xyratex’s own global product test organization. With product availability and reliability requirements being key differentiators for Xyratex in its markets, the need for exhaustive, rigorous and in-depth functional testing is critical.
The knowledge required to perform at this level, being very data storage focused, is not easily obtained but I have been impressed by the way these skills have been cultivated and the low levels of staff turnover.
Vedams was able to bring the necessary expertise and resources to meet our business objectives. What I like the most is its flexibility in their business model to meet our needs.
Vedams’s global delivery model is strongly supported by their onshore project management. Because of the seamless communication maintained by the local project managers, we were able to keep our customer’s aggressive schedules on time and on budget.