Considering migrating to software-defined storage? Evaluate server options before you migrate

[ComputeExperts]

Get the guidance you need to evaluate server infrastructure options before you migrate to software-defined storage (SDS).

In today’s digital economy, analytics, IoT and social media are driving exponential data growth. This change has forced a shift in traditional data management techniques resulting in advanced frameworks like SDS to gain traction.

SDS: the storage brain of the software-defined data center

SNIA defines SDS as virtualized storage with a service management interface. Characteristics include:

• Tiered storage pool
• Standardized storage management interface, such as SNIA’s Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S)
• DevOps enablement to use a variety of data management tools
• Ability to execute data services in servers and/or storage appliance

How should you plan SDS implementation?

Planning SDS infrastructure implementation is important for any IT planner. Here’s how we recommend getting started.

First, some of aspects like ecosystem support, vendor capability and investments plus benefits for workloads are important considerations. When it comes to other decision points, you need to consider various financial factors like CAPEX and OPEX, along with technical factors like scaling, performance, and high availability.

Keep in mind that SDS on rack and blade form-factor servers can be classified into three options:

1. SDS on rack with local disk
2. SDS on rack with JBOD (just a bunch of disks)
3. SDS on blade

Use this table to compare these three options to guide your choices:
Taking all these things into consideration, we suggest you keep these guidelines in mind when determining the infrastructure needed to to deploy your SDS solution:

• With lower CAPEX and OPEX, SDS on a rack server with a local disk would be good entry option.
• For medium scalability, storage performance and network complexity considerations, SDS on a rack server with JBOD can be considered.
• For higher availability, storage performance and scaling consideration, SDS on Blade with JBOD would be a good option.

Evaluate and choose an option which best meets your requirements. Know that HPE can help with all of these options. If you are interested in learning more, please contact your HPE representative.

Our goal: We want you to get more from your servers with storage.

---

 Meet Server Experts blogger Deepak SN, Data Center Solution Engineer, HPE. Deepak has 16 years of data center solution experience in architecture design, capacity planning and applications support for enterprise customers. He keeps tabs on the latest technology trends and interests in converged and hyperconverged platforms, SDDC, VDI and cloud technology.

Server Experts
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

 @HPE_Servers
 linkedin.com/showcase/hpe-servers-and-systems/