Supermicro® OSNEXUS Software-Defined Storage Solution
Data Storage is Driving Modern Business Solutions
The total amount of data created, captured, copied, and consumed globally is forecast to increase rapidly. Datasets are getting larger, both in terms of file sizes and storage volume. This is all thanks to the availability of more intelligent software working on more performant hardware and also the number of devices generating data has grown rapidly.
As a result, disruptive businesses can grow, and others become more efficient in the process. Yet, it poses a significant storage problem as data creation increases annually.
Historically administrators would format and partition each drive manually. As a result, they fixed volumes apart from taking substantial time to create a working system. Therefore, service changes were effectively impossible.
This setback causes a significant challenge for big data that needs artificial intelligence (AI) to pre-emptively queue data for users. Managing network traffic through distributed data is also essential when shifting data between storage locations and users.
There are three reasons for adding software-defined storage solutions to your business:
- Faster Deployment
- Lower Operation costs
- Easier management
As data consumption increases, collected extensive data becomes big data, and network limitations require active management. Software-defined storage solutions are the only way forward. Companies that have seen divine revelation have already started using software-defined storage solutions.
The real question isn't do I need a software-defined storage solution; it's who's offering will be the best solution. Here we'll review one of the best on the market, Supermicro's OSNEXUS software-defined storage solution.
Supermicro’s Software-Defined Storage Solution
Supermicro has been providing business solutions for more than 25 years. This highly reputable company offers many solutions and services, including software-defined storage solutions. Supermicro’s offerings allow you to be up and running within no time. They do this by providing you with the best hardware, software, and service combination.
To see what makes Supermicro’s storage solution so desirable, let’s first delve into how it works. Here we’ll start with one of the main features, the scalable storage grid.
The Storage Grid
Either onsite or remote, systems grow organically and inevitably are constructed with mixed hardware. Managing these systems separately can be a major headache for IT teams. However, managing, monitoring, and keeping these storage silos safe becomes simple with OSNEXUS and its storage grid technology.
OSNEXUS's QuantaStor SDS platform implements the grid. In addition, QuantaStor SDS helps provide certified hardware configurations across hardware components from different manufacturers. As a result, you don't need to worry about your hardware supplier; you can save money. No longer is there a need to throw everything out and start from scratch when you have usable hardware.
The storage grid is designed to be scalable and enable companies to quickly implement storage solutions in onsite, remote, hybrid, and multisite setups.
High Availability
A business is only as advanced as the technology it uses. Supermicro’s storage solutions enable you to not only use the best technology but ensure you have zero downtime. High availability is possible thanks to QuantaStor’s scale-up clusters. These have HA failover technology and are one of the fastest solutions on the market. This failover works through a parallel HA system that ensures you’re always up and running.
Thanks to having a centralized management system, you can save upwards of 50% of your storage management costs. You can also run upgrades and software upgrades, and other maintenance activities with zero downtime. This facility offers administrators the convenience of when they wish to run these tasks. They are no longer forced to run these tasks out of hours.
Data replication is simple with QuantaStor’s storage grid technology. You can decide what data pool to run replication on. You can also quickly move data between tiers when needed. One of the great features is that data replication occurs automatically during a failover!
Scale-out for NAS
To manage big data and large data volumes, it's necessary to have the ability to scale out fast. Speed is essential to ensure you are not paying for storage when it's not being used. It also ensures that your team isn't kicking gravel waiting on the new volume.
NAS scale-out enables you to leverage local storage and cloud storage pools. By scaling quickly, you provide your company with maximum data flexibility and project adaptability. This plus is essential in these highly competitive times and ensures your profits are lucrative.
Imagine you have many different storage devices on your network. Traditionally if you wanted to aggregate everything under one namespace, it would be impossible. However, those days are now passed thanks to OSNEXUS's fast scale-out feature. This functionality works by grouping shared locations into a global namespace. An SMB and NFS redirect are used to achieve this through the QuantaStor defined storage pools.
But what if you need to create discrete blocks, not just larger volumes?
Scale-out for Block Storage
You can scale out NAS and create and manage block storage from your aggregated QuantaStor storage pools. Scale-out block pools sit on top of Ceph, an abstraction layer between the storage pool and the block pool. You might liken this abstraction to a virtual machine leveraging assets through an intermediatory layer.
Security
As cybercrime is becoming rife, securing data is critical for your business’s success. OSNEXUS’s QuantaStor makes it easier than ever to encrypt data with SMB, IPsec, and HTTPS. In addition, to further make it difficult for cybercriminals, you can use data allocation. This feature helps speed up network speeds and protect big data by spreading data across volumes.
Configuration Analyzer
It can be a real handful to manage multiple systems and storage metrics all at once. Effectively software-defined storage solutions allow administrators to format, define and collect everything from one management interface. The configuration analyzer enables an administrator or cross-disciplinary team to manage the system quickly. It allows them to see all hardware, storage pools, and blocks in one platform.
One critical use for the configuration analyzer is managing data proactively. For example, imagine if you have a big data file. Data sitting on one piece of hardware creates potential bottlenecks through the interface and protocol constraints.
Therefore, it makes sense to split it up and allow users to access it simultaneously. For these circumstances, it makes sense to use NVMe storage. It has a wide bandwidth and no on-device data parsing during storage and retrieval, making it fast. In addition, if you split big data across hardware, it will allow multiple users to access the same data and data pools efficiently without the bottlenecks.
Final Thoughts
There is a paradigm shift towards software-defined storage solutions to help improve the performance of a system. However, hardware from many vendors and mixed protocols make storage solutions complex to manage in a traditional environment.
Data created, managed, and stored is critical to a business’s success. Therefore, you must remove any waste to help maximize a company’s ability to be competitive.
OSNEXUS's software-defined storage solution utilizes proven open-source solutions integrated into a proprietary solution. This means there's support for simultaneous deployment and cross-functional team interaction for larger environments.
You can use existing hardware and, if needed, complement it with new storage. Storage can be local, remote, or part of a hybrid solution. For project-based companies where data scaling is required to occur quickly, you can use OSNEXUS's software. You can easily create data pools and blocks and manage them from a single interface. It is one of the best software-defined storage solutions around.
Onsite data streamlining will reduce your operational costs whether you use remote storage solutions or not. You'll save money thanks to using your existing infrastructure. The time needed to conduct routine maintenance tasks also allows you to save further. This is expected to be upwards of 50% of your current maintenance cost, not exactly small potatoes!