NexGen Delivers Storage Performance Control for Software-Defined Datacenters

NexGen Storage, Inc. announced new performance automation capabilities for Software-Defined Datacenters.

NexGen’s ioControl 2.1 offers the ability to provision and guarantee VMware datastore storage performance. By offering embedded performance intelligence along with the ability to provision and guarantee VMware datastore performance within vCenter, NexGen makes it easy and affordable for mid-sized enterprises to guarantee application performance in virtual environments.

NexGen also unveiled new I/O efficiency reports that give users new insight into performance gained from NexGen’s data reduction, designed specifically for primary storage.

"The very concept of Software-Defined Datacenters underscores the need for storage infrastructures that can manage  mixed workload performance easily, dynamically and efficiently," said Mark Peters, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. "To ensure consistent, guaranteed performance levels, such infrastructures require resource-usage and application-requirement information, and the ability to act quickly upon that to optimally manage the storage. Storage QoS for VMware Datastores, which NexGen embeds directly into vCenter, is helping to optimize virtual workload performance management."

"With its differentiated Storage QoS offering and hybrid solid-state architecture, NexGen Storage is well-poised to capitalize on what we view as a rapidly growing storage market opportunity," said Henry Baltazar, senior analyst for The 451 Group. "The majority of data center workloads are virtualized today. As organizations move to virtualize their remaining applications, which are primarily business- and mission-critical apps, the need for storage solutions that guarantee each application has its required performance will continue to grow."

ioControl 2.1 delivers
new performance automation capabilities, including:

• Performance Intelligence. Enables smart, informed performance allocations by monitoring application workload data and key performance resource usage metrics. These metrics include per volume statistics, system response times and workload-specific metrics like block size and host queue depth.
• Storage QoS for VMware Datastores. Allows users to set guaranteed minimum levels of storage system performance directly on a VMware datastore in vCenter. Users can change the priority and storage performance of any datastore on-the-fly, in real time, and with no downtime. Other capabilities include VM to datastore mapping along with monitoring system performance, capacity, alerts, and messages.
• Dashboard Efficiency Reports. Click-and-view reports that monitor system I/O efficiency so users can measure the return on their solid-state investment and view the positive impact NexGen data reduction has on overall system performance.

These new performance automation features provide IT administrators the information needed to effectively manage VMware datastore performance.

"Our virtual infrastructure is evolving, and our storage requirements – especially around performance – are extremely demanding. We selected NexGen storage because of its ability to manage performance with quality of service," said David Blaisdell, assistant director of information resources – IT, Colby-Sawyer College (read case study). "What’s more, we knew NexGen had data reduction capabilities but were skeptical of the impact on system latency. Since implementing, we’ve discovered that NexGen’s data reduction reduces latency on more than 90% of data we’ve provisioned."

"By embedding world-class performance intelligence and industry-leading Storage QoS capabilities into vCenter, administrators have a new, straight-forward way to deal with virtual infrastructure performance issues," said Chris McCall, VP of marketing, NexGen Storage.

ioControl 2.1 will be available December 14, 2012 on NexGen’s line of n5 Series storage solutions. As with previous releases, ioControl 2.1 will be offered at no charge to existing customers.