Nimble Storage SmartStack Converged Infrastructure Solutions Deployed by 200 Enterprises

Nimble Storage, Inc. announced that more than 200 enterprise customers have implemented SmartStack converged infrastructure solutions to accelerate deployment and eliminate risks associated with their datacenter infrastructure.

Since late 2012, Nimble Storage has rolled out a series of SmartStack reference architectures that allow enterprises to deploy an integrated solution stack for server virtualization, VDI, and business critical applications.

Earlier this year, it also reached a distribution agreement with Avnet Technology Solutions to offer pre-integration and configuration services for the converged infrastructure solutions.
 
Enterprises are looking to meet the performance and capacity demands associated with business-critical applications, VDI, and private clouds in the most cost-effective and flexible manner possible. Nimble Storage’s SmartStack solutions, built on Cisco UCS and pre-validated through ecosystem partners including Citrix, Microsoft, Oracle, and VMware, deliver aggressive performance, shorten deployment times, and reduce project risk.

These SmartStack solutions leverage flexible scaling capabilities for compute and storage, allowing customers to non-disruptively and independently add performance or capacity to support thousands of users per configuration. Customers benefit from a simplified architecture that delivers a 30 to 75% reduction in their data footprint and a reduction in the physical rack space required compared to traditional solutions, with minimal end user impact.

Through Nimble’s alliance partnership with Cisco, SmartStack customers can leverage pre-tested solutions for virtual desktops and servers that reduce operational expenditures and enhance worker productivity, allowing enterprises to scale the number of end users based on their growing needs. With Nimble Storage, the Cisco UCS combines compute, networking and storage access into one cohesive system that’s easy-to-manage.

The series of Nimble Storage SmartStack solutions include:

• SmartStack for Desktop and Server Virtualization with Cisco and VMware
• SmartStack for VDI with Cisco and Citrix
• SmartStack for VDI with Cisco and VMware
• SmartStack for Windows Server with Cisco and Microsoft
• SmartStack for Business-Critical Applications with Cisco and VMware
• SmartStack for Oracle Databases with Cisco and Oracle

SmartStack customers further benefit from a single entry point for SmartStack support. Nimble Storage technical support coordinates support resources with SmartStack partners to ensure a timely and seamless experience for customers. Customers can also leverage Nimble Storage InfoSight, for cloud-based storage analytics and proactive support.

Nimble Storage was exhibiting its converged infrastructure solutions at Cisco Live in San Francisco, CA on May 18 – 22, 2014.

“To support our 18 locations, we looked for a solution that could deliver the performance, capacity, and data protection needs of our virtualized business critical applications as well as our virtual desktops. Nimble Storage’s SmartStack for Desktop and Server Virtualization delivered what we needed in a single infrastructure stack – with a small footprint that can be easily scaled as our needs grow,” said Alexander Gellerman, VP, systems infrastructure, Flushing Bank.

“When we moved our SQL, Exchange, and Citrix environments onto Nimble’s SmartStack for Business Critical Applications our users immediately expressed their amazement with the performance increase. And, that wasn’t the only benefit. Now, with the Cisco UCS blades and Nimble, we’ve reduced our data center footprint down to just two racks of hardware. As a result, we have reduced our datacenter co-location costs by 50%,” said Aaron Britt, director, IS infrastructure, DMB Associates, Inc.

“Users are increasingly turning to offerings like Nimble Storage SmartStack that simplify the full infrastructure stack by decreasing the time to deployment and delivering predictable performance for applications. Practitioners in the Wikibon community increasingly look to deploy flash as part of an integrated infrastructure stack that can simplify operations, allowing IT to more focus on creating more value for the business,” said Stu Miniman, senior analyst, Wikibon.

“Customers that are leveraging SmartStack are getting the best of all worlds with Nimble and Cisco, specifically when it comes to scaling, compute and storage. Nimble Storage’s scale-to-fit functionality gives enterprises the power to non-disruptively grow storage and Cisco UCS allows them to scale by adding blade servers for rapid server provisioning and a scalable IO architecture. With this pre-validated solution, enterprises can cost-effectively scale capacity and performance without any downtime and continually adapt as business needs change,” said Radhika Krishnan, VP, product marketing and alliances, Nimble Storage.