Change is a constant and it is inevitable. This has never been more accurate than today with the movement towards the modern data center. The modern data center allows you to deploy architecture that delivers new services to businesses and customers alike. Inevitably, new applications arise and they demand changes in the infrastructure. For years people have called these changes disruptive, revolutionary or even evolutionary.
IT transformational change is often a point of angst for many businesses. Aligning process and people with new technologies may appear to be a daunting task. We believe that software-defined data centers can offer IT organizations the means to transform at their own pace while not having to sacrifice the ability to advance their business.
Last month in Jeremy Burton’s Reflections Blog, “The Pillars of the Modern Data Center”, he talked about the need for IT organizations to modernize their data center and how software-defined, one of the four pillars, can help organizations achieve this goal. Software-defined storage is an integral piece in this transformation. It offers a simpler, more agile and tailored data center, which can result in substantial cost savings.
In the last few months, EMC has continued to expand and enhance our software-defined storage offerings – supporting all data types (block, object and file). In January, we announced the release of ECS 2.2, EMC’s software-defined cloud-scale object storage platform that simplifies storage for traditional as well as next-gen apps with global access and protection. More recently, we announced ScaleIO 2.0, a software-defined, scale-out, block storage server SAN solution. This release focused on enabling IT organizations with the powerful agility that comes with public clouds combined with the security and peace of mind expected from private clouds.
So what does ScaleIO 2.0 release deliver?
- Enriched Security enabling IT organizations to utilize IPv6 addresses, integrate ScaleIO with their role-based user management platforms (AD/LDAP) as well as provide more granular access for those users.
- Enhanced Resiliency ensures data is always available and not corrupt using in-flight checksum. Expanded support options, read flash cache capabilities, as well as efficiencies when performing maintenance on ScaleIO servers are few others.
- Extended Platform Support for new OS platforms like Ubuntu and CoreOS in addition to Redhat, Windows and SUSE Linux and expanded OpenStack capabilities in addition to Mirantis, Docker and Mesosphere. By expanding the functionality of ScaleIO’s active GUI, IT organizations are able to streamline operations and simplify user experience.
As a software-defined block storage solution, IT organizations have a wide range of choice in deploying ScaleIO – as a software, or as a storage-only or better still as a full turnkey VCE VxRack Flex 1000 hyper-converged system.
Don’t take our word for it. Larry Lau, Director of Architecture and Infrastructure at Verizon Labs said, “With high performance and intelligent data management in mind, Verizon Labs turned to ScaleIO to help provide the resiliency and agility needed to serve Verizon customers.”
These announcements are just the start. We firmly believe that software-defined storage will be at the heart of modern data center transformation in the coming years. At EMC World 2016, IT organizations will hear on topics ranging from flash, software-defined storage, converged infrastructure, and rack scale architectures to hybrid cloud and data lakes.
While change is constant and inevitable, our mission is to empower you with the cutting-edge storage solutions needed to achieve your data center transformation.
