Red Hat Storage One Approach to Web-Scale Enterprise Storage

Red Hat, Inc. announced the availability of Storage One, an approach to web-scale enterprise storage aimed at providing customers the convenience of hardware-optimized systems while preserving the flexibility and scale of software-defined storage.

Click to enlarge

Storage One is designed to provide more of a plug-and-play approach to the procurement, deployment, and performance tuning of software-defined storage, ushering in a wave of enterprise storage to meet the varying demands of modern workloads. It is a platform of pre-engineered systems, created in collaboration with the company’s server hardware partners, that delivers tightly packaged workload-optimized storage solution,The fulfillment and support is offered via the firm’s hardware partner ecosystem. Super Micro Computer, Inc. is the first server partner offering a single part number for software, hardware, and support of the solution.

Click to enlarge

With rapidly increasing data volumes, many organizations are facing pressure to modernize traditional systems. As a result, many enterprises now want the benefits of software-defined storage without investing in the deep skill sets that may be required to configure and tune the systems.

Unlike many proprietary monolithic storage systems that are labeled software-defined storage only in name, Storage One offers an open, flexible, and modular solution that can be extended to meet the evolving needs of the modern enterprise. It can help customers get the flexibility of software-defined storage and the convenience of storage appliances, with features including:

• Ease of installation – The simplified and repeatable deployment process, thanks to a company’s Ansible Automation-based quick install tool, combined with available pre-configured workloads for media content repositories and general purpose NAS, can enable organizations to implement Storage One quickly and efficiently.

• Workload and hardware optimization – The software-defined storage and underlying hardware are pre-optimized for performance and throughput characteristics of the specific workload addressed by each solution.

• Flexible scalability – Storage One will be available in configurations ranging from four to 24 nodes, and is able to accommodate rapid growth via rolling upgrades as the needs of the storage system evolve.

• Cost-effective – Storage One has an all-in-one pricing model that includes advanced storage services for a more comprehensive, scale-out solution.

Storage One is built on the company’s storage portfolio, designed to offer durable, elastic storage, adapted to a variety of complex workloads, and trusted by customers with some of the most demanding storage deployments across geographies and industry verticals.

Ranga Rangachari, VP and GM, Red Hat Storage, said: “Enterprises that need to deploy elastic storage for modern workloads and application portability across the open hybrid cloud are looking to software-defined storage. Many of our storage customers are looking to purchase and deploy a packaged solution that requires little customization. We are excited to bring together the flexible, software-defined power of Red Hat Storage with resilient hardware from our partner ecosystem to make software-defined storage more appealing.“

Scott Sinclair, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group, said: “Transformational software-defined storage can deliver greater benefits than traditional storage systems, even when it’s deployed with hardware. Red Hat and Supermicro offer the best of both worlds by providing the power of software-defined storage, a simplified solution with single part number, automated installation, support, and workload configuration options.”

Michael McNerney, VP, software solutions and network security, Supermicro, said: “The collaboration between Red Hat and Supermicro eases the acquisition, deployment, and support of software-defined storage to petabytes and beyond. Leveraging Supermicro’s comprehensive portfolio of storage optimized servers, Red Hat Storage One provides an ‘out of the box’ solution that provides the convenience of automated deployment with the flexibility of software-defined storage.“

Resources:
Red Hat Storage One    
Red Hat Gluster Storage        
Red Hat Storage blog    
Red Hat Storage videos on YouTube   
Analyst opinion on trends in software-defined storage (video)