Software Defined Storage

The evolution of storage media has produced a wide array of options, each with distinctive characteristics, benefits and limitations. Yet many of these current generation storage solutions fall short in their ability to support the needs of next-generation applications. From big data, social, mobile and cloud computing to robotics, 3D printing and the Internet of Things, new technologies require storage media that delivers more speed, flexibility, scalability and capacity. But even as new technologies emerge to address these needs, IT teams are facing pressure to constrain costs and to get more done with existing resources, requiring new storage media to also be cost-efficient and easy to manage.

Software-defined storage solutions satisfy these requirements for performance, flexibility, scalability, ease of use and cost efficiency by separating the management services (control plane) from the infrastructure (data plane) of storage media. Storage defined systems create a single pool of storage from a heterogeneous set of storage arrays and enable administrators to create virtual storage arrays through policy. Unlike traditional storage arrays, software-defined storage enables new arrays to be added quickly and easily, and administrators can give users self-service tools that lets them access storage immediately rather than waiting days or weeks for help from IT.

Dell EMC provides software-defined storage solutions that enable organizations to reduce TCO, optimize IT operations and automate the deployment of IT services. Dell EMC solutions are available as scale-out file storage and object storage deployments and include:

• Dell EMC VxRail, a software-defined storage, hyperconverged system engineered to lower TCO and simplify VMware environments. VxRail transforms HCI networking and simplifies VMware cloud adoption, while meeting any HCI use case, including support for many of the most demanding workloads and applications.
• Dell EMC IsilonSD Edge, a software-defined scale-out network attached storage system for a wide range of file workloads. IsilonSD Edge is highly efficient with up to 80% storage utilization and supports multiple workloads with a single storage solution.
• Dell EMC ECS, a cloud-scale globally distributed object storage solution with a low total cost of ownership. ECS offers infinite scalability, a simple infrastructure and 48% lower TCO than public cloud deployments.
• UnityVSA, a software-defined unified storage system which can be installed on a VMware ESXi system as a vAPP in order to provide a fully Unity-compatible instance, including HA capability. UnityVSA provides the same UI and full suite of snapshot and replication tools included with Unity hardware systems and supports up to 50 TB of storage.
• Unity Cloud Edition, a software defined version of the Unity platform that can be installed and run in a public cloud environment using the services of VMware Cloud Foundation on AWS. 

While each Dell EMC software-defined storage option has its own strengths and benefits, collectively, these solutions enable organizations to:

• Manage storage more effectively. Software-defined storage enables smarter interactions between workloads and storage, provides dynamic storage provision and helps storage better adapt to the needs of the organization.
• Improve control and efficiency. With software-defined storage, organizations can optimize infrastructure to more successfully meet rapidly changing business requirements.
• Enable agile consumption. Software-defined storage supports both traditional and emerging models of IT consumption, enabling IT teams to increase agility across infrastructure for cloud, mobile, social and analytics platforms.
• Scale in real time. Software-defined storage provides optimal capacity based on current business requirements and enables IT teams to provision tiered storage on demand. 

What is software-defined storage?

Software-defined storage is an approach to managing data storage that decouples storage software from storage hardware components. Using a layer of software to provision, orchestrate and manage data storage on industry-standard servers, software-defined storage gives administrators more choice and flexibility, enabling them to achieve the speed and agility they need to support next-generation workloads. With software-defined solutions, storage becomes a heterogeneous pool of hardware resources where administrators can mix and match hardware and media.

What are the benefits of software-defined storage solutions?

The two biggest benefits of software-defined storage are cost and efficiency. Storage-defined solutions enable all existing hardware to be used and leveraged optimally before needing to purchase new storage media. New storage arrays can be added quickly and easily, and users can access storage more easily with self-service tools. Ultimately, software-defined storage enables IT administrators to spend more time managing data rather than the hardware it resides on.