In 2033, the Software-Defined Storage (SDS) industry is expected to hit $207.6B In 2022, SDS represented $17.85B. That’s 1000% growth in 10 years.
If you’ve considered making the transition to an SDS solution but aren’t sure if it’s the right choice for your IT environment, keep reading…
As an effective way to ensure that the needs of businesses are met without compromising on functionality, scalability or quality – SDS is transforming how companies store and manage their data. In this blog post, we will discuss why SDS technology is essential for organizations looking for greater control and increased performance over their digital transformation efforts as well as what StorONE can bring to the table.
It’s safe to say that SDS is changing the game in data storage, so if you’re not already familiar with it, now is the time to dive in.
What is Software-Defined Storage (SDS)?
Software-defined storage (SDS) separates the software controlling the storage infrastructure from the underlying hardware. This separation allows for better flexibility and scalability, as well as the ability to manage data across different storage solutions. It’s becoming increasingly popular for businesses looking to manage their growing data storage requirements.
It’s important to be aware that while SDS offers numerous advantages, there are also some challenges with some systems, such as integration issues, security concerns, performance, complexity and lack of standardization.
However, as digital transformation continues to drive demand for storage solutions, SDS vendors have significant opportunities to provide scalable, versatile, and cost-effective solutions for organizations of all sizes.
What are the Benefits of SDS to an Organization?
Typically, organizations move to a fully digital storage infrastructure because of the flexibility and cost savings that the SDS system brings. However, it can also improve their performance, scalability, and reliability, increased efficiency in operations, more granular control of storage resources, better access management and privacy protection, and enhanced interoperability.
It serves as the foundation for organizations looking to modernize their data centers and transition from physical storage infrastructures to a virtualized environment.
How Do I Transition from a Legacy System to SDS?
Now that you understand the benefits, it may seem like an impossible task to transition to an SDS environment. Here are some things to consider while assessing if an SDS system will work for your IT environment in a way that will not compromise on functionality, scalability or quality:
- Compatibility: Make sure the SDS system is compatible with your existing hardware, software, and network infrastructure.
- Scalability: Check if the SDS system can scale up or down according to your future storage needs, and whether it can handle the expected increase in data volume.
- Performance: Assess the performance of the SDS system under different workloads and configurations, and compare it with traditional storage solutions to ensure that it meets your performance requirements.
- Data protection: Evaluate the data protection mechanisms provided by the SDS system, such as data replication, snapshots, and encryption, and ensure they meet your organization’s security requirements.
- Integration: Determine how easily the SDS system can integrate with your existing management tools, monitoring systems, and automation frameworks.
- Support and maintenance: Ensure that the SDS system is backed by a reliable support and maintenance program that includes timely updates, patches, and bug fixes.
- Total Cost of Ownership: Assess the total cost of ownership of the SDS system over its lifetime, taking into account not just the initial purchase price but also ongoing maintenance, support, and upgrade costs.
You’re Ready to Move to SDS…but Everything Sounds the Same
We know researching storage options is painful. Our goal is to make it as easy for you as possible, and keep in mind we have a team ready to talk you through this at any time.
How and Why The StorONE Engine is Different
When our co-founders looked at the storage industry, they realized the software innovations had not been keeping up with the server and networking innovations. They dedicated eight years to develop The StorONE Engine, and rewrite the I/O stack, which completed the virtualization revolution with hypervisors and SDN.
They realized the need for a storage solution that could keep pace with advancements in server and networking technologies, and create a virtualized storage platform that could leverage hypervisors and SDN to deliver unmatched performance and scalability. This commitment to developing a unique, cutting-edge storage platform has allowed StorONE to offer an SDS solution that provides unmatched performance, scalability, and flexibility to its customers. With a focus on innovation, StorONE has continued to evolve its platform, delivering advanced features and capabilities that set it apart from traditional storage solutions.
Let’s take a look at the 5 key innovations that set StorONE apart….
Virtual Storage Containers (VSCs)
Our Virtual Storage Container (VSC) is a self-contained storage environment that operates within The StorONE Engine. It enables your IT team to provision the Engine’s resources so that one storage solution can address an entire data center’s storage needs. Virtual Storage Container (VSC) technology gives a truly virtualized storage platform that allows for the integration of multiple storage types, including block, file, and object-based storage, and can be deployed on commodity hardware. Take a more in-depth look at our VSC here.
Cacheless Architecture: Rewritten IO Storage Stack
Cacheless architecture is becoming increasingly popular within storage systems because it delivers better performance in many situations by bypassing the write-cache to reduce latency and increase throughput.
StorONE takes this a step further by combining write-cache bypassing with non-shared media pools. This combination enables highly competitive workloads to be run on the same system without resource contention. Additionally, StorONE allows you to add resources while continuing to handle demanding workloads.
Optimized Data Placement
StorONE’s optimized data placement is advanced auto-tiering, which maximizes storage efficiency by automatically moving data to the most appropriate tier of storage based on its frequency of use. The StorONE Engine monitors the frequency of access to data and then moves it between high-performance, low-latency media and high-capacity, lower-performance media to achieve the best balance of performance and cost.
With this feature, StorONE ensures that the most frequently used data is stored on high-performance storage, while less frequently used data is stored on lower-cost storage.
vRAID
StorONE vRAID is a patented technology that enhances data protection by providing a more reliable and efficient way to manage RAID by distributing data protection across all available storage resources, including SSDs and HDDs, and eliminating the need for dedicated RAID groups. Additionally, vRAID is designed to be self-healing, automatically correcting errors that are detected within the storage system to ensure data integrity and protection. Learn more about our vRAID here.
vSNAP: Differentiated Snapshots
StorONE’s vSNAP is a differentiated snapshot technology that allows you to implement an incremental snapshot technology allows users to take snapshots at different intervals without the need for complete data copies. This is the most efficient way to create point-in-time copies of data without consuming extra storage space. Advanced vSNAP allows you to create immutable snapshots of individual volumes, groups of volumes, or even the entire storage system that can not be modified, encrypted, or deleted by ransomware.
