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.