Keeping your data, applications, and services up to date is a challenge made even more complex by cloud migration strategies that spread capacity across multiple on- and off-premise environments. This can make it difficult to ensure you always have enough storage for everything. However, imagine having the ability to manage your data storage effortlessly and securely across all locations with a single, unified console. This tool would not only provision and configure your arrays, but also provide you with the flexibility of choosing pricing models that best suit your company size and budget. This is where comes in. Let’s explore.

Simplifying Data Storage & Infrastructure

HPE Alletra offers a comprehensive data infrastructure solution that enables customers to move from managing and maintaining data storage in-house to accessing it as an on-demand service. With hybrid cloud data protection, users can access their datasets anywhere with maximum agility while maintaining security across multiple environments from edge-to-cloud. This makes the process of storing large amounts of data easier than ever before.

Businesses can transform their data infrastructure with HPE Alletra and free themselves from the hassle of owning, upgrading, and fine-tuning on-premise storage. With this service, you can access data anywhere while without compromising on efficiency – leading to operational time savings.

HPE Alletra storage solutions offer a wide range of options for customers, depending on their specific application and workload requirements. Three array families are available – the 5000 series, 6000 series, and 9000 series – each featuring various drive configurations to ensure maximum performance in any environment. is the latest addition to their portfolio, and revolutionizes data storage with hybrid cloud data protection, giving customers the ultimate capacity and consumption options at competitive prices. With this leading-edge solution, businesses can now store their data more securely while significantly reducing costs. The luxury of accessing and utilizing as you go is becoming more and more commonplace in the consumption model era.

Improving Financial Agility

The HPE Alletra portfolio improves data storage and hybrid cloud data protection with the assistance of . Enterprises can access a flexible as-a-service consumption model that supports overcoming CapEx budget constraints and complex procurement cycles with HPE GreenLake. With guidance from partners like WEI, HPE Alletra makes it even easier for organizations to get the storage resources they need with optimized tiers delivered in just days – providing scalability on-demand as well as buffer capacity for surprise workloads or sudden usage spikes. Businesses get the best of both worlds with these data storage solutions: pay-per-use flexibility or a managed turnkey solution that helps companies free up cash flow while increasing financial agility.

Furthermore, companies can say goodbye to hefty upfront costs and hello to a convenient, monthly subscription with HPE Alletra 5000. Cloud consumption allows you to speed up project deployment times while freeing up both capital and IT resources. By aligning spending with business needs, this system provides financial flexibility as well as improved operational agility.

HPE Strengthens Hybrid Cloud Data Protection

As data becomes more valuable and critical to businesses, the difficulties of backing up, recovering, and managing it are growing. Data growth is accelerating exponentially, which increases pressure on costs while intensifying risk. As IT infrastructures move toward a hybrid cloud model with applications spread over various environments (data centers, private clouds, and public clouds), protecting them has become an increasingly complex task.

is a comprehensive solution designed to protect VMware virtual machines (VMs) across hybrid cloud environments with the convenience of software as a service (SaaS). HPE Alletra customers can benefit from this service as well as local snapshots for fast data restores, on-premise backups for rapid recovery, plus cost effective long-term storage in the cloud.

With HPE Alletra and HPE Backup and Recovery Services, organizations can enjoy peace of mind knowing their valuable information won’t be compromised. HPE’s advanced security solutions protect VMs from potential or malware attacks while offering a cost-effective approach across hybrid clouds.

Learn More About HPE’s Data Storage Offerings

HPE has transformed the way businesses operate, offering cutting-edge cloud solutions that maximize productivity and minimize costs. For more than 20 years, WEI has proudly partnered with HPE to access their latest storage offerings – allowing us to help enterprises gain maximum value from their data infrastructure investments. Get in touch today for more information on how you can manage your data with these powerful data infrastructure solutions.

Next Steps: In a recent WEI study, 52% of IT decision makers indicated plans to invest in upgrades and maintenance of storage solutions in the next two years. Our experts have identified four smart storage strategies to compete in today’s digital world. Download our free tech brief below!

The post Unlock Financial Agility, Data Protection For Your Hybrid Storage Needs appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Almost every enterprise has accumulated thousands of digital files over the years. Everything from customer records to logo graphics is data that needs to be stored in a secure, easy-to-access place. As organizations embark on their digital transformations, it’s important to think about storage infrastructure enhancements to reduce costs while optimizing company performance and security. Companies should consider data storage solutions such as HPE Nimble Storage to help reach this goal. Let’s cover exactly what it is and five reasons why companies should use this particular data storage solution.

What Is HPE Nimble Storage?

explains, “HPE Nimble Storage is a flash-optimized, intelligent, self-managing storage portfolio that delivers the simplest storage experience with enterprise functionality.” This data storage solution utilizes innovative technology to keep continuous track of your IT infrastructure while also protecting your organization from cybersecurity risks.

Nimble Storage has three main products that include all-flash arrays, adaptive flash arrays, and secondary flash arrays. Powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, Nimble Storage can make systems quicker and more reliable to assist with the IT needs many organizations have. IDC states: “HPE customers are realizing significant value by utilizing HPE Nimble Storage to improve their IT agility and application performance and availability. These benefits are worth an average of $3.06 million per year, which would result in a five-year ROI of 487%.” Those statistics alone are some of the many reasons Nimble Storage is an excellent data storage solution for businesses.

Five Benefits Of HPE Nimble Storage

Nimble Storage, along with , is designed to provide flexibility and consistency for enterprise storage, especially for those with varying IT needs. Here are the key benefits of HPE Nimble Storage for modernizing your data storage infrastructure.

1. Enhanced Business Performance

Nimble Storage delivers fast, reliable IT support as common issues that pop up across IT environments can be typically solved. This data storage solution compares your issues with previous ones to resolve problems, allowing you to avoid downtime. IT leaders know that downtime impacts both IT and the enterprise, so it is reassuring to know that Nimble Storage can reduce unplanned downtime by 69%.

HPE Nimble Storage also automatically predicts and resolves 86% of problems before you even know they exist. This will give your IT team time to focus on more important projects. This gained agility leads to improved performance and better business productivity.

2. Lower Costs

HPE Nimble Storage can help organizations find significant cost savings through its adaptive intelligence. It lowers the cost of operations since it offers an on-demand, pay-as-you-go service instead of large upfront payments. Your data storage budget can be aligned to usage, saving you money in the long run. In fact, this data storage solution shows impressive numbers such as a 49% reduction in the total cost of operations.

3. Improved Security

Nimble Storage is powered by , which is a cloud-based platform that checks systems for any possible security or downtime issues. This proactive AI cybersecurity service helps you identify any vulnerabilities before they affect your business. HPE reports that 86% of issues detected are automatically resolved without the need for additional IT support. This ultimately lowers risk and boosts the efficiency of your IT infrastructure and work performance.

4. Flexibility

The HPE Nimble Storage is a unique platform with a scale-to-fit architecture that allows customers to scale up performance and capacity independently. Not only can this data storage solution scale up, but it can also scale out. This means your data storage can have improved performance and capacity. This flexible platform gives organizations the option to add or remove resources as they see fit.

5. Streamlined Process

Implementing HPE Nimble Storage lets your IT team access data whenever it’s needed. In fact, it has a 99.9999% availability rate for that purpose. This platform also has one of the quickest provisioning times, allowing your organization to set up your storage selection almost instantly so you can resume operations as soon as possible and expand your IT environment faster.

Conclusion

With HPE Nimble Storage, you don’t need to deal with unexpected data storage surprises such as unplanned downtime and expensive support costs. Organizations can have high expectations with lower costs and improved performance. This efficient data storage solution can help IT teams devote more time to innovation.

If you are looking to change your data storage system, contact WEI today. Our team of professionals can work with you on finding which data storage solutions your business needs, as well as go over how Nimble Storage solutions may be the perfect fit for your enterprise.

Next Steps: AI is an important aspect of data center modernization. Download our tech brief titled, “” to learn how AI can enhance your IT environment.

The post Top Five Reasons To Consider HPE Nimble Storage appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

As another year has concluded, we have reached that time to review the IT trends of 2021. Most IT professionals could use an extra minute to catch their breath as last year continued to push many IT departments due to the pandemic’s outbreak in 2020. To gain some perspective on our year-long journey, we sat down with two senior executives at WEI, David Fafel, and Greg Labrie, to get their perspectives on the relevant IT trends that came about in 2021. We also pulled data from a commissioned study we did in partnership with concerning the state of digital transformation in 2021. The study involved an audience of IT decision makers (ITDMs) across multiple industries that provided insightful and surprising information concerning their IT initiatives in 2021.

Remote Work Transitions to Hybrid Work

Could anyone have predicted where we are now when it comes to workspace utilization? While so many organizations implemented remote work strategies overnight, they most likely operationalized these same strategies as a temporary stopgap. As many people return to their desk, companies are now utilizing traditional office space as more of a “touchdown” area for employees to congregate during select days of the week. Typical activities include team building, brainstorming, client interaction, departmental meetings, etc. For many in the workforce, this new concept is a welcome change, thus leading to the hybrid work model’s rising popularity. Still, it involves working remotely, which invokes change in so many other areas. For IT, it means that connectivity has now shifted to the employee’s home, wherever that may be.

In turn, companies that have adjusted to a scaled mobile workforce have also achieved a dynamic recruiting advantage over their competitors. During the current labor shortage, these forward-thinking companies are recruiting talent far outside their local area because they realize employees can be productive no matter where they reside. If you don’t have employees in your traditional building any longer, you’ve also essentially shifted some of the network and connectivity costs to the employee. It has also freed IT personnel, at least somewhat, from some of their usual support duties as employees have become more self-sufficient with their own IT needs. We use the term “somewhat” because the 80/20 rule comes into play; twenty percent of a company’s personnel will always need help and that select group is consuming a lot more time to remotely support them as internal IT doesn’t have control of these remote workspaces.

Zero-Trust Networks Taking Shape

In 2021, enterprises realized that their expedient transition to remote work architectures required revaluation as remote work permeated within their culture. In an environment in which work can now be performed anywhere, the old reliance on perimeter security architectures is now outdated, and companies are rushing to adapt zero-trust networks. In a zero-trust environment, you don’t treat end users any differently when logging in at the office, or if they were to connect from home or at the local coffee shop. We are now living in a validate-first world in which trust must first be corroborated on all devices. These days, you can no longer assume that traffic originating within the LAN is legitimate because there are just too many avenues for attackers and malware to infiltrate.

Bad Habits Still Present in 2021

We all know smoking is bad for us, yet the people we know and our favorite fictional television characters still do it. Similarly, we know that backups are the golden ticket that can save us from the brink of cybersecurity disaster, yet too many IT professionals are not applying this practice correctly. Many are using backup strategies from a decade ago, or more. Localized backups are too prone to attack and hackers are expertly taking out these systems in advance of the primary attack. Cloud backup technology has greatly advanced, and we are seeing more companies trust the cloud and embrace it because it completely segregates your backups from your on-premises environment.

To continue with the health analogy, we know that a healthy diet and regular exercise are of great benefit, but we procrastinate on practicing these good habits until a major medical event occurs. While ransomware continues to be a mounting problem, too many enterprises continue to use a reactionary approach when combatting it. Ransomware is a war that requires proactive measures. We need network intelligence and network monitoring tools at the network layer to monitor what is happening across the IT environment. For example, why is Lucy suddenly accessing the payroll system? We know she has access privileges, but the timing of this activity seems odd. These small, yet important, instances are why we need to stop threat actors from launching attacks from deep within our enterprise’s network.

IT Staff Augmentation

One of the most surprising things we discovered in the IDG commissioned study was how much companies are utilizing staff augmentation strategies. The pandemic is showing us the value in having the ability to transform quickly to implement new strategies. Having a strategic workforce plan that can attract the required talent for a project as quickly as possible is now imperative. Companies are having to contend with serious skill gaps when it comes to areas such as cybersecurity, DevOps, automation, and cloud computing within their own organization. Companies have found that the traditional approach to full-time hiring is too slow and reactionary to inject the proper talent into their organizations.

To meet this challenge, companies are turning to staff augmentation strategies. We found that a surprising 82% of survey respondents in the IDG study considered IT staff augmentation to be highly important for their organization with more than one in ten respondents ranking it as critical. Respondents also reported that nearly 40% of IT staff is considered temporary.

How Did Companies Spend Their Budgets in 2021?

Companies continued their quest to digitally transform their organizations as 60% of respondents allocated funds toward transformational directives. The top five most popular IT investment objectives are listed below:

• 64%: Improving data security
• 51%: Improving operational and process efficiency
• 38%: Improving the customer experience
• 37% Gathering and analyzing data to make better business objectives
• 34%: Driving new revenue through innovation

Respondents were also asked which technologies they considered to be the most crucial to achieving their digital technology strategies. The top five technologies are:

• 25%: Hybrid cloud (private and public)
• 24%: AI enabled technology
• 21%: IoT technology
• 18%: Hardware
• 18%: containers

Hybrid IT Architectures and Multi-cloud Strategies

The IDG study showed that hybrid IT was the preferred architectural goal of companies in 2021 with 55% of respondents describing their current environment as such. Another 37% reported that their organizations are headed in that direction, but aren’t quite there yet. These hybrid architectures are making use of multiple clouds as 46% reported as having a fully-optimized multi-cloud strategy. These multi-cloud strategies are allowing companies to match workloads to their most optimal cloud environment, giving them maximum flexibility while reducing their dependency on any one cloud service provider.

Improving data security was the top use case for cloud technology according to 59% of respondents. There is no doubt that companies are recognizing the value of utilizing cloud-based security solutions. Improving the speed of IT service delivery was mentioned by 50% of respondents, making it the second top use case.

Want More Insights into IT Trends o 2021?

Next Steps: If you would like to learn more about the IT trends that emerged in 2021 and what strategies and controls that companies within your industry used to accelerate their digital transformations and overcome the many emerging challenges, you can download our new white paper titled, “” In it, you will find a lot of great information summarized from the IDG study.

You can also contact us to speak with one of our SMEs to gain additional insights related to your own unique environment and business objectives. It was another year of innovation and growth for WEI, and we look forward to helping our current and future customers achieve their IT objectives as much as possible.

The post A Year in Review: IT Trends 2021 appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

How much data is your enterprise creating and what are you doing about it? For most companies, data is being created, and subsequently stored, at faster and faster rates. However, many enterprises lack the tools to properly utilize and take advantage of their data, especially those that are still struggling with just the part of the equation.

As technology has advanced, we’ve moved from storing information on tapes to disks and now, in modern times, the cloud. By utilizing the cloud for data storage and processing, enterprises gain great benefits, but no solution is without its costs.

The main issue comes when the data stored on the cloud needs to be utilized by services on-prem or in the data center. is helping to solve this problem and liberate enterprises from the confines of data siloes with their new Keep reading to learn how this solution is redefining cloud data storage.

Find Freedom In Data Management

While a vast majority of enterprises are utilizing the cloud for some amount of data storage, few have utilized it for critical file data, often citing difficulties in moving it one way or the other. As a result, the data lives separately than the applications that need it, reducing the effectiveness and utilization of this data. To get around this problem, some IT teams have re-built workflows to use data while it’s in the cloud, but this comes with its own set of problems.

The bottom line is there hasn’t been a simple solution to solve these cloud data storage and utilization issues… Until now.

Qumulo Shift for Amazon S3 allows IT teams to fluidly move data to and from Amazon S3 with just a few clicks, simplifying the cloud storage process and streamlining interactions with other Amazon Web Services as well.

“I like to think of [Qumulo Shift for Amazon S3] as the easiest way for customers to put their file data to work with all the amazing marketplace apps and cloud native services on AWS,” said Qumulo Technical Marketing Manager David Sniderman, with ESG Senior Analyst Scott Sinclair. “Our file system is designed to help users take advantage of the cloud’s scalable infrastructure for high performance data processing and content creation. Shift lets customers take that data, wherever they create it, and use it with AWS Cloud Service.”

With Qumulo Shift for Amazon S3, Qumulo customers, whether cloud native or creating data on prem, can take that valuable file data and use it with Amazon’s full suite of cloud services.

Why Enterprises Choose Qumulo Shift For Amazon S3

In addition to this simplified data management, enterprises will experience a variety of other benefits, including:

• Improved data availability for your users, wherever they might be located. In a time when many businesses are utilizing remote or , this is a benefit that cannot be overestimated.
• Realtime visibility and control over data and users. Potential issues can be found quicker and any decisions that must be made regarding the management of data will benefit from a full and accurate picture of the current data environment.
• Better data reliability and protection. Thanks to Qumulo’s distributed file system, which aggregates and protects cloud storage, enterprises never have to worry about files lost in the cloud. Secondary copies of data are created by native replication, which adds an additional layer of data protection.
• Lowered total cost of ownership (TCO). In comparison to legacy solutions, Qumulo Shift for Amazon S3 costs less and offers a higher percentage of provisioned capacity.
• Flexibility. Qumulo offers a flexible deployment model, allowing enterprises to create the environment that best suits their performance and capacity needs.

At the heart of it, is making it easier for enterprises to keep their data next to their applications, allowing it to be utilized to meet business objectives.

Are You Interested In Qumulo Shift For Amazon S3?

As a leader in data management, Qumulo is trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major film and animation studios, and some of the largest research facilities around the world. From building smart cars, to vital disease research, enterprises around the world are changing the way they store and utilize data thanks to Qumulo. Our team has experience implementing Qumulo for enterprise companies that process and analyze vast amounts of mission-critical data across several industries. today to learn more about how Qumulo can quickly add value to your data storage environment and strategy.

NEXT STEPS: Check out our latest infographic which shares 7 ways Qumulo is making cloud data storage radically simple. PLUS it includes a case study example of how one of our customers found success leveraging Qumulo with AWS. Click below to learn more.

The post How Qumulo Shift For Amazon S3 Can Revolutionize Your Data Storage appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

It’s no secret that HPE has been on the forefront of storage innovation for some time. Even with that knowledge, HPE’s is still an exciting moment for IT leaders everywhere.

In this article, we’ll break down the most important points of HPE’s recent announcements and new offerings, as well as how they can help you leverage your data to make decisions that will drive your business forward.

What Are The Specific Problems HPE Is Trying To Solve?

To really understand HPE’s goals with their new storage offerings, it’s important to have a clear idea of the specific data storage problems they set out to solve when designing them.

First and foremost is the amount of data that organizations are faced with. New digital efforts have resulted in more data than ever before, and with increased cyber threats, as well as rising expectations to utilize data, enterprises are left with a very complex situation that requires manual management for many IT organizations. , this complexity “creates risk and comes at a cost to innovation and time-to-market.”

For those organizations that have transformed their data storage to reduce the burden on IT through artificial intelligence (AI), self-service, policy-based automation or other strategies, the problem of complexity still remains.

This complexity is exactly the challenge HPE has tackled with their latest cloud-native storage offerings, which aim to streamline operations and provide simplicity for .

The latest in As-A-Service: HPE’s New Cloud Console

The new is a SaaS-based console that delivers unified data operations as a service, drastically reducing the need for manual data and infrastructure management.

When designing the console, , “a unique, cloud-native architecture, shared with the Aruba Edge Services Platform, and is designed to abstract and control infrastructure and data workflows across the data lifecycle and infrastructure lifecycle from edge-to-cloud.”

By utilizing as its technological foundation, the console ensures enterprises experience the secure management experience of on-premises environments, but with the agility of the cloud.

The Data Services Cloud Console is also helping organizations focus less on managing their data and more on utilizing it to their advantage by speeding app development and deployment, eliminating data silos, and offering the cloud experience regardless of the location of the data.

Maintain Data Infrastructure With HPE Cloud Data Services

Through this suite of software subscription services, data administrators can simplify and automate data infrastructure management, regardless of the location or scale of the data.

Among its other benefits, these subscription services will:

• Enable self-service
• Offer on-demand provisioning
• Eliminate guesswork
• Allow enterprises to optimize service level objectives

Master Edge-To-Cloud With HPE Alletra

With all of their new storage offerings, HPE is simplifying and reducing the need for manual management of data, and is no exception.

is a portfolio of cloud-native data infrastructure solutions that can support data no matter where it lives, from edge-to-cloud. Powered by the aforementioned Data Services Console, HPE Alletra is also delivered as-a-service, helping enterprises stay financially flexible.

Best of all, the portfolio has been built with today’s diverse application and infrastructure needs in mind, delivering the architectural flexibility enterprises need, without the added complexity of legacy data infrastructure.

HPE Is Changing The Storage Game

With these innovations, it’s clear that HPE is committed to helping customers leverage their data to make decisions that propel businesses forward.

Other advancements in their storage solutions over the past few years, including HPE Infosight, and now these new storage-as-a-service offerings, give enterprises a way to finally conquer the data management problem and get out from underneath the mountains of data that today’s digital world creates.

Questions about HPE’s New Storage Offerings?

As a global, edge-to-cloud company, HPE is helping enterprises implement solutions that improve productivity and reduce costs through cloud solutions. Here at WEI we get access to new HPE offerings thanks to our Platinum Partner status so we can fully understand how these solutions will benefit our customers. Contact WEI today to start a discussion about HPE’s game-changing storage announcements.

NEXT STEPS: Spend less time managing infrastructure and more time focused on the projects that matter most. Find out how HPE’s Intelligent Data Platform powered by HPE InfoSight can keep you in the know about infrastructure performance and how it can proactively heal and patch problems before you even know they exist! Read our tech brief below for more information.

The post Why HPE’s New Storage Offerings Matter To You appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

The basic function and expectation of IT is to fulfill the day-to-day technology needs of the enterprise, support innovation and ensure a positive user experience for employees and customers. This requires a certain amount of time, money, and resources to be done correctly, but the unfortunate reality is that many IT teams are being asked to do more with less these days.

To meet these budget requirements without sacrificing performance, many enterprises have turned to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). Through HCI, enterprises can simplify IT infrastructure, speed up deployment and reduce operational costs with efficiency gains.

The HCI solution we’ll highlight today is , which can deliver savings of up to 66 percent over a three-year period compared to public cloud, 43 percent when compared to traditional three-tier infrastructure, and 28 percent when compared to other HCI solutions, according to a .

Top 5 areas of value from HPE SimpliVity

As shared in the ESG report, HPE SimpliVity 325 brings tangible value in five important areas:

1. 1. Cost of Acquisition
2. 2. Data Protection
3. 3. Administration
4. 4. Data Center Costs
5. 5. Support

1. Cost of acquisition

HPE SimpliVity 325 offers immediate value by reducing the minimum deployment requirement from three nodes to just two, offering instant savings when compared to other HCI offerings. Other cost savings come in the form of data efficiency through software-optimized inline deduplication, compression, and optimization of I/O and network traffic. In addition to offering significant storage and bandwidth efficiency, these advantages also improve performance.

2. Data protection

Several core features come standard with HPE SimpliVity 325, including built-in virtual machine backups, multi-site replication, recovery and cloning, and disaster recovery. In terms of monetary value, these features reduce costs associated with security. HPE also offers benefits through its partnerships with other technology vendors, including Veeam, making it simple for enterprises to acquire solutions for specialized data situations.

3. Administration

HPE SimpliVity 325 builds upon the standard administrative benefits of HCI by facilitating all aspects of management through the interface and requires no specialized training. This means IT teams only require a single generalist to handle management tasks for the entire deployment.

4. Data center costs

For data centers, HPE SimpliVity 325 offers cost savings because of its two-node minimum, meaning the infrastructure takes up less floor space, needs less power and less cooling. This equates to environmental cost savings of up to 16 percent when compared to other HCI offerings, according to ESG.

5. Support

In terms of support, HPE SimpliVity 325, which requires less hardware and features built-in data protection, has lower support costs and has a single support center for infrastructure, software, and backups. This significantly reduces the resources and time IT teams have become used to from years of dealing with support delays and challenges with legacy hardware.

Additional

In addition to the cost savings, HPE SimpliVity delivers self-managing, self-optimizing, and self-healing infrastructure through artificial intelligence (AI). Machine learning predictive analytics through elevates the solution above other HCI offerings and give enterprises a truly intelligent HCI solution.

As a global, edge-to-cloud Platform-as-a-Service company, HPE is helping enterprises around the world upgrade from legacy systems and experience the benefits of HCI. With a variety of use cases, HPE SimpliVity can transform any IT operation and reduce costs, improve efficiency, and boost performance.

Find out how HPE SimpliVity fits in your environment. Contact us to start a conversation and learn how your business can start realizing these benefits from HPE SimpliVity.

The post Top 5 Areas of Value Brought by HPE SimpliVity appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

We all make mistakes. Some of them have consequences that are more lasting than others are. When it comes to choosing a data storage solution, you can make many common scale-out mistakes. These mistakes can turn your new data storage infrastructure into the gift that keeps on giving. One of the biggest challenges when purchasing data storage is predicting how much storage capacity you really need. It is the most fundamental of considerations. Failing to account for future data growth will leave you scrambling to purchase additional storage sooner than you want to. However, it is just as detrimental to pay for more storage than you need in the near term, especially if that extra space is never used. Overpaying for storage today ties up capital that can be better utilized investing in current opportunities that can return value to your organization.

Scale-up vs Scale-out storage

One of the reasons that people make the mistake of paying for far more storage than they need is that they do not understand the difference between scale-up and scale-out storage. Most IT admins are familiar with the concept of scale-up storage even if they do not recognize the term. Also referred to as vertical scaling, it has served as the traditional architecture for block and file storage platforms. The typical system consists of a pair of redundant controllers that manage multiple shelves of disks. As your storage needs grow, you simply purchase more shelves. The concept sounds simple. While purchasing additional shelves does provide access to new disk technology and price efficiencies, your I/O performance remains throttled by the technology and resources of the stagnant controllers. And there is the fact there is a hard limit to how many shelves the controllers can manage. Once that shelf threshold is reached, you must purchase a new complete controller/shelf package. Then, there comes the day when you must upgrade the system. That is when you bring in the forklift and migrate all of your data to the newer system.

Scale-out storage is known as horizontal scaling and utilizes network-attached storage architecture. Rather than utilizing a series of controller-based shelves, scale-out storage consists of a series of interdependent appliances with each one serving as a complete system by itself. At the same time, you can configure these modules to act as a single cluster. Much like , you can add additional storage appliances like Lego blocks. Capacity of the cluster is automatically then expanded and new data is distributed. There is no need for separate controllers however as all of the required resources reside in the module itself. This means you get more than just added capacity. Additional RAM, CPU and networking resources can be leveraged to improve overall performance of the cluster.

Dell EMC Isilon

If the concept of scale-out storage sounds interesting, then you should become familiar with Dell EMC Storage. That is because according to IDC, Dell EMC Isilon is the industry’s #1 family of network-attached storage systems according to IDC in 2019. Some of the available choice in the Isilon family include the following:

• For those who want the high performance of an all flash array (AFA) there are the Isilon F800 and F810 models that feature up to 250K IOPS and up to 924 TB capacity per chassis
• Those who want the agility of a hybrid architecture will want to learn more about the Isilon H series that offers both SSD and SATA drives within a dense chassis design that can save you 75 percent in rack space
• For those seeking an archiving solution there is the Isilon A200 and A2000 units that are designed to safeguard data with encryption, data protection and efficiency at a lower cost

The right storage solution

Dell EMC has other storage architectures as well. If the need for speed is imperative, then Dell’s SCM persistent storage class memory line of primary storage solutions may be perfect. The PowerMax 8000 holds the title of the fastest storage array and delivers end-to-end NVMe storage class memory. It features 4 PB of effective storage capacity and a blazing 350GB per second bandwidth. For those seeking a simple next generation midrange storage solution there is the Dell EMC Unity XT family, built from the ground up to deliver unified storage speed and efficiency. Next generation means that it is built for a multi-cloud world and comes in both AFA and . In fact, Dell has a solution for just about every storage need, of any organization. What’s more, has solutions specifically designed for industries such as healthcare and media as well as defined workloads such as SAP and AI.

Connections Matter

Your data storage arrays do not work in isolation however. Your arrays can have the fastest I/O speeds available but without the equitable network infrastructure connecting them, your system cannot achieve optimum performance. It is a common mistake. Cheap connections can breed performance problems. If you currently depend on SANs for your storage needs, then consider the line of Directors and Switches. Connectrix directors and switches are designed to bring the best performance and scalability to your storage networks. Ensure high availability and support for Fibre Channel, FICON, FCiP and NVMe over Fabrics.

How WEI can help

Dell EMC has the storage solution to accommodate nearly any data strategy. Chances are that data strategy has changed quite a bit over the years and it may be time to revisit that strategy. Talk to the WEI data storage experts to ensure your data strategy and its supporting architecture will help drive your desired business outcomes. Storage can be complicated, confusing, and costly without the right strategy in place.

NEXT STEPS: Learn about these six scale-out storage mistakes to avoid in our video below.

The post An Enterprise Storage Solution for Everyone (Thanks DellEMC!) appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

The driver that wins the big race does not get as much credit for the win if he simply drove the fastest car on the track. After all, logic says the driver should win. A recent trend in data storage has been to migrate to all flash array storage solutions. Flash drives are certainly faster than HDD disks. For those enterprises that implement AFA storage arrays, performance is definitely fast, which it should be using the logic of the fastest racecar. However, there are companies that are achieving ultrafast performance without having to pay the premium price for high performance storage media. Now that is real innovation.

The high cost of Flash Storage

While SDD may be the fastest disk on the street, it does not make AFA a best alternative. Just as the fastest car on the track is also most likely the most expensive one, AFA storage solutions are costly. A single SSD disk is more than an HDD. The price differential for a single disk may be negligible, but the more storage you need, the more that price differential multiplies. Now imagine if your organization utilizes 100 petabytes of data. Suddenly that price differential is spiraling upwards in the same exponential fashion as your . Despite its costliness, many storage vendors are introducing AFA solutions as the easy way to increase the turbo performance to your storage.

Not all data is equal

This does not mean that SSD is not a viable solution. You certainly have some data that you can justify the need for flash storage. However, that is key term, “some”. Every company has a data profile that emulates a triangle. The small share of data that justifies high-value high-performance resides at the top. The wide base of the triangle represents the majority of your data that consists of lesser value. It can also tolerate greater latency. This is why despite the appeal of performance, AFA solutions still only account for 15 percent of the total footprint of external storage capacity sold today.

Do not confuse speed with innovation

Storage innovation equates to more than just speed, and hardware innovation is not the only approach to deliver it. Infinidat is proof of this. In fact, Gartner names Infinidat as a leader in the 2019 Magic Quadrant for Primary Storage. Gartner does not designate you a leader just because you have the fastest hardware. They do so because you deliver innovation on multiple fronts. Infinidat set about to create a solution specifically designed for petabyte storage environments, one that does more than just store bits and bytes, but provides a competitive edge for petabyte enterprise environments. The result was the creation of an entirely new approach to building and scaling storage infrastructure called the array.

What Infinidat delivers

Infinibox utilizes hybrid architecture that incorporates HDD disks as well as an allotment of SSD drives to deliver the right mix of media storage. Don’t associate the integration of HDD with decreased performance however. In fact, Infinibox is faster than AFA storage. How is this possible? Through innovative design that incorporates DRAM caching as well a machine learning algorithm called Neural Cache that uses I/O history to recognize data correlations in data access patterns in order to optimize future performance.

Infinibox delivers more than just high throughput and microsecond latency. Its single 42U rack provides over 8PB of effective storage capacity. Infinibox maximizes disk utilization through highly efficient thin provisioning, continuous space reclamation, space-efficient snapshots and inline data compression. Those enterprises that require more even more capacity but have unpredictable future growth can take advantage of Infinidat’s flexible consumption option called (COD). With COD, companies only pay for the storage presented to their storage and applications. When more storage is needed, they simply pay for it to have added capacity unveiled.

Infinidat created Infinibox from the ground up for high availability and reliability. It’s self-healing architecture incorporates a hardware redundancy design of (n+2) that helps enable rapid recovery form any component failure. Its resilient design can withstand the failure of up to 12 drives and provide reliability at a level of seven nines.

Security is another aspect in which Infinidat separates itself from AFA solutions. Encryption and traditional approaches to data reduction by nature do not coexist for AFA designs. Infinidat overcomes this challenge by incorporating a approach towards encryption. Thanks to 30 years of collective innovation, Infinibox is able to deliver reduced TCO objectives for both encrypted and non-encrypted data.

Economics at petabyte scale

Large companies are always trying to leverage their inherent economies of scale to their own advantage. Infinibox allows companies to unify their data center-scale pools of storage to overcome the conflicting desires of faster and less expensive performance. With a power load of only 4 watts per usable terabyte, Infinidat customers can quickly garner significant power savings in addition to reduced disk media costs. Savings is also achieved by consolidating the storage footprint through data reduction. When you add it all up, it is no wonder that CFOs as well as CIOs are embracing Infinidat to help them build competitive advantages by attaining superior data services while coinciding realizing substantial cost savings in operational costs. For petabyte enterprise environments, you no longer have to scale your budgets in the same exponential fashion as your data capacity growth. With Infinidat, you can be the first to cross the finish line, without breaking the bank.

NEXT STEPS: Find out why CIOs and CFOs love Infinidat in this video.

The post Infinidat Delivers Petabyte Scale, Performance and Innovation appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Some purchases require more planning than others do. This is certainly true when it comes to investing in a data storage solution. While applications may come and go, your company’s data lives on. Your data drives the majority of your business operations. One can argue that outside of your Internet gateway, no other facet of the data center has a greater impact on business operations and workloads.

As a result, your storage infrastructure serves as a functional foundation for your business and choosing a data infrastructure solution requires greater diligence than other enterprise components. Just as there are best practices to implementing a data storage solution, there are best practices when it comes to purchasing one as well. We’ve compiled a few dos and don’ts concerning the enterprise storage purchasing process.

Do buy for tomorrow and not today

There are some things you buy to fill an immediate need. Data storage is not one of them. Just as smart homebuyers purchase a first home that will accommodate the needs of a growing family, data storage is a long-term acquisition. You are buying into the future. A by IDC shows that the amount of data residing in the world today doubles every two years. Though that dramatic growth rate may not be indicative of your own environment, it is a universal truth that your organization will create and ingest more data a year from now. Failure to overlook future data growth has definite repercussions. The purchasing process is too elongated and migrations can be too involved and costly to repeat it all again in a couple of years.

Don’t underestimate data growth

If you are going to buy for tomorrow, you need to know what tomorrow looks like. Most of your company’s data is created outside of the IT department. Make it a point to meet with department heads throughout your company to learn about their needs. Their anticipated application deployments will increase data expansion. Meet with senior executives to discuss possible acquisitions or mergers as events such as these can exponentially escalate storage needs overnight.

Do think about your storage environment as a whole

Your data center is a collective assembly of infrastructure nodes and technologies. You cannot optimize server workloads by only considering RAM and CPU allotment. The same applies to storage. Your storage arrays are not islands. Your storage array may have the fastest IOPs but its surrounding infrastructure environment can undermine its performance potential. Make sure you have the right networking strategy to take advantage of high performance storage across your entire enterprise.

Don’t just compare storage size

While careful consideration of future data growth is an essential step, storage availability goes beyond the mere presence of physical storage space. Modern day storage solutions incorporate a number of data reduction technologies to maximize available space such as thin provisioning, compression and deduplication. Make sure you understand these supplemental technologies and understand that different vendors use different equation sets to arrive at their incremental savings targets. Data reduction methodologies can also reduce your overall storage footprint. equates to lower costs concerning space, power and cooling.

Do compare apples to apples

Data storage is a lot more complicated than it was a decade ago. Make sure you understand the difference between HDD and SSD technology. HDD is cheaper but requires more power to spin the disks. Solid-state drives are much faster and have less moving parts; however, not all of your data will justify the initial cost. There is also hybrid storage that incorporates both types. Make sure you understand the ratio of HHD and SSD and the role that SSD will play.

Don’t let initial pricing restrict your options

We all know that price should never be the sole driving factor for something as important as your storage infrastructure, yet it is an easy trap due to the high cost of storage. CAPEX however, is not the only involved cost for today’s modern data storage solutions. You consider long term operational and support costs as well. Savings initiated from data reduction technologies, drive consolidation and management efficiencies all help to reduce the TCO of modern . Some vendors also offer leasing options as well as flex capacity options in which you only pay for the storage you currently use.

Do plan for long purchasing and education cycles

If you have not kept track of data storage innovation since your last purchase, there is going to be a learning curve to catch up. Common best practices within the data storage industry have changed a lot in the past five years. Chances are that any assumptions made during your last product cycle are outdated today. It is about more than just file or block storage today. Begin the preliminary stages of your next product cycle early enough to educate yourself. Taking the time to speak with your peers about their own experiences will pay off. You can also speak with the storage experts at WEI who will take the time to understand the future needs of your environment to help construct a strategy for you.

Do consider Dell Storage Solutions and WEI

There are many options available today when it comes to storage, and you need a vendor that provides many types of solutions. The portfolio of storage solutions available from Dell Technologies can help you unlock the value of your data. for nearly every conceivable environment:

• Primary storage solutions designed to accelerate your critical workloads from core to edge to cloud
• Managed control of your unstructured data by efficiently consolidating wide ranges of file and object storage at any scale
• Automated management and AI help attain greater efficiencies, performance and reliability
• Data solutions specifically designed for specific environments such as SAP or cloud services
• Data solutions that meet the unique needs of given industries such as healthcare or multimedia

Dell manufactures the solutions, and WEI customizes them to the varying needs of our customers. WEI is a premier technology partner that is also passionate about storage and solving technology problems for our customers. Let WEI educate you about your storage options in order to liberate the value and innovation that lies within your residing data.

NEXT STEPS: Explore more Dos and Don’ts of Enterprise Storage decisions.
Over the years WEI’s storage experts have seen it ALL! Find out what we’ve learned about storage strategies across a variety of industries and check out these helpful tips for planning your enterprise storage needs. Contact us any time for a storage strategy review.

The post Exploring the Dos and Don’ts of Enterprise Storage appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.