AI initiatives, hybrid cloud adoption, ransomware threats, and regulatory mandates are reshaping how businesses think about infrastructure. A Dell storage refresh is a strategic opportunity to align your data foundation with long term business goals. When guided by an experienced Dell partner and built on modern IT storage solutions, your refresh becomes a catalyst for AI readiness, cyber resilience, and hybrid cloud transformation.

AI integration has been the top storage trend for two consecutive years, while organizations face exponential data growth and stricter compliance requirements. Global data creation is projected to reach hundreds of zettabytes in the coming years, placing unprecedented demands on enterprise infrastructure. If your last refresh occurred three to five years ago, your current architecture may not be prepared for AI-driven workloads or hybrid operations.

Aligning IT Storage Solutions with AI-Driven Business Strategy

AI and ML workloads generate massive volumes of structured and unstructured data. Your IT storage solutions must support high throughput, low latency, and intelligent data placement. AI-optimized platforms are designed to manage rapid data growth, integrate with AI frameworks, and apply predictive analytics to balance workloads.

Solutions such as Dell PowerScale deliver up to 200 percent performance improvement for streaming reads and writes, supporting AI data preparation and inference. PowerStore provides up to 30 percent more IOPS and 20 percent lower latency compared to previous models. These gains directly support initiatives designed to accelerate AI time to value and maximize return on GPU and analytics investments.

A well-planned Dell storage refresh enables your teams to move AI projects from pilot to production with confidence. With the guidance of an AI infrastructure partner offering AI infrastructure consulting for enterprises and the best enterprise AI integration services, you can align storage architecture with measurable business outcomes and long-term innovation strategies.

Cyber Resilience at the Core

Data breaches can result in significant financial loss, reputational damage, and regulatory exposure for your organization. Your storage platform must play a central role in cyber defense. Modern systems incorporate immutable backups, air-gapped storage, encryption, and cyber recovery vaults. Technologies such as CryptoSpike monitor access behavior in real time and allow granular file restoration if an attack occurs.

A strategic Dell storage refresh embeds zero trust principles directly into your IT storage solutions, strengthening your security posture while supporting regulatory compliance, governance mandates, and board-level risk management priorities.

Hybrid and Modern Workloads

Hybrid and multi-cloud strategies require data mobility across on premises and cloud environments. At the same time, containerized and edge applications demand modern, software-driven architectures.

Platforms such as PowerFlex integrate compute, storage, and networking for Kubernetes-based workloads, while PowerMax delivers up to 50 percent faster response times through end-to-end NVMe architecture. When evaluating a Dell storage refresh, you should assess workload mobility, governance, sustainability goals, and cloud alignment. An experienced Dell partner can guide assessment, migration planning, and lifecycle management to ensure a smooth transition and measurable operational impact.

Final Thoughts

A storage modernization initiative is about more than replacing aging systems. A carefully executed Dell storage refresh prepares your enterprise for AI-driven growth, cyber risk mitigation, and hybrid cloud expansion.

As a trusted Dell partner and AI infrastructure partner, WEI brings deep expertise in IT storage solutions, AI infrastructure consulting for enterprises, and the best enterprise AI integration services. Our team works closely with executive leaders to design strategies that accelerate AI time to value, strengthen data protection, and align infrastructure with long term business priorities.

If you are evaluating your next refresh initiative, contact WEI to build a future-ready data foundation that supports innovation, resilience, and sustained growth.

Next Steps: Whether you’re deploying AI now or planning future implementations, PowerEdge provides the security foundation and performance capabilities your organization needs. Before your next infrastructure refresh, explore how Dell PowerEdge can strengthen both your security posture and AI readiness. Download a read our free tech brief, 

The post Is Your Enterprise AI Strategy at Risk Without a Dell Storage Refresh? appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Picture yourself as the proud owner of a classic car, a vintage beauty you’ve painstakingly restored with a significant investment of resources. It’s more than just a car; it’s a symbol of your dedication. Data, like your classic car, is a business’s most valuable asset. Just as you wouldn’t leave the car exposed to the elements, you need to securely store and protect your organization’s information.

You wouldn’t just throw a tarp over your precious vehicle. You would place it out of the elements, away from opportunists who might see your car as an easy steal. Managing and maintaining mission-critical applications demands that same level of care and protection for your data. This is where HPE Primera comes to the rescue.

Unmatched Data Storage And Performance

When looking for a data storage solution, your enterprise needs to prioritize operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness. HPE Primera stands out by offering cloud-like agility, unified data management, and new standards for resiliency and performance in an enterprise storage solution. It possesses a set of features well-suited for the modern data center environment, such as:

1. Extreme Resiliency

HPE Primera provides a 100% Availability Guarantee to ensure your data’s constant accessibility. Think of it like an easy-to-operate and reliable garage for your classic car. With automatic weekly updates and upgrades, downtime is minimal, and your data stays secure and intact.

2. Intelligent Operations

Investing in a vintage car demands a garage capable of proactive issue resolution. HPE Primera, powered by HPE InfoSight, an AI-driven intelligence platform, excels in this regard by resolving storage problems in real-time. This, in turn, reduces workloads and eliminates human errors to ensure continuous data safety.

Additionally, the HPE Primera OS offers advanced data services with simplicity and enhanced resiliency for mission-critical applications. Unlike monolithic operating systems (OS) that pose upgrade risks and necessitate node reboots, HPE Primera utilizes a services-centric OS which allows for independent deployment, upgrading, and restarting of each data service.

3. Timeless And Cost-Efficient Storage

HPE Primera provides guaranteed data reduction ratios at a flat support price, with a technology refresh every three years. This eliminates the need for costly upgrades and ensures businesses benefit from updated data storage technology.

4. Scalable Architecture

HPE Primera’s modular design offers flexibility and customization for modern businesses. It seamlessly scales to meet evolving requirements, just as your garage flexes to store more tools that contribute to maintaining your car collection.

Its container-based architecture offers:

• Streamlined multi-node configurations and provisioning.
• Effective management of both traditional and next-generation applications.

As a result, these guarantee a seamless I/O for predictable performance and low latency.

5. Hybrid Cloud Capabilities

HPE Primera is equipped with the following features to manage and migrate various workloads, including:

• Seamless integration and mobility of mission-critical apps (such as SAP HANA, VMWare, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server) to primary, secondary, and private/public cloud tiers like AWS, Scality, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
• . Businesses can restore data in mere seconds, rather than minutes or hours.

6. Security

HPE Primera prioritizes data privacy and compliance. By default, it encrypts your data and employs tamper-evident security measures to maintain data integrity. This system not only secures your data, but also actively detects and alerts you to any unauthorized access or tampering attempts.

7. Green Storage Solution

HPE Primera is not just a high-performance garage. With its , the appliance operates with minimal carbon footprint and has lower cooling costs than other Tier 0 storage solutions.

Final Thoughts

As the volume of data continues to grow, managing and maintaining mission-critical applications for your business requires high-performing and resilient storage solutions. HPE Primera is a comprehensive service that seamlessly combines cloud storage’s agility with high-end storage system performance and security.

This intelligent choice is perfect for businesses seeking efficient and reliable storage solutions. Whether you require a platform for intensive applications, hybrid cloud capabilities, data privacy, or energy efficiency, HPE Primera has you covered. Contact the storage experts at WEI and take the first step to secure your data and unlock your business’s full potential.

Next steps: In the meantime, download our free tech brief,

The post How HPE Primera’s All-In-One Solution Transforms Your Data Storage Game appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Enterprises modernizing their IT infrastructure to keep up with the demand of a changing workforce need more from their storage providers. With the work-from-anywhere model here to stay, an enterprise storage solution that offers on-demand, always-on, and easy-to-use services is a must.

As more enterprises move forward with their modernization efforts to support this shift in the workforce, agility is a key requirement of high-end storage. It is clear that the more purpose-built, statically defined scale-up designs of the past need to give way to more software-defined, modular scale-out designs.

Modern enterprises need a high-end storage solution that leverages AI/ML technologies, in combination with automation and continuous availability, to improve and simplify routine management tasks at scale. It is also important to be able to operate in hybrid cloud environments while also delivering a rich, secure storage management operating system.

There is one high-end storage solution that meets all these requirements and more: HPE Primera Intelligent Storage. Keep reading to learn 10 reasons why HPE Primera meets your enterprise’s high-end storage needs.

10 Reasons Why Your Enterprise Needs HPE Primera Intelligent Storage

1. Global Intelligence: With HPE InfoSight embedded into HPE Primera, disruptions are predicted and prevented in real-time to help optimize performance.
2. Services-centric OS: Mission-critical apps benefit from reduced risk and enhanced resiliency with HPE Primera’s simplified and unique OS for high-end storage without node reboots for most updates.
3. 100% availability guarantee: Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, HPE Primera analyzes application patterns while also predicting and preventing disruptions across the infrastructure. The solution also provides business continuity with automatic site failover. With no disruptions, corruptions, or delays using app-aware resiliency across all models, HPE Primera provides a 100% availability guarantee.
4. Timeless storage: This all-inclusive software provides a unique ownership experience with unending value. You won’t pay for additional features and enhancements, and the software will update every three years.
5. Radical simplicity: With HPE Primera, your time spent deploying, managing, and scaling your storage needs is reduced up to 93%. HPE Primera is able to tune itself and implement upgrades without slowing your ability to serve your customers.
6. As-a-service consumption: Using HPE Primera with HPE Greenlake offers you the ability to consume IT on your terms. Get exactly what you need when you need it with its ability to use high-end storage-as-a-service capabilities.
7. Intelligence and composability: HPE Primera’s integration with HPE Synergy advances the cloud experience, providing a foundation of composability for any workload.
8. All-active architecture: Every volume within your storage architecture is able to access every SSD, node, and port, providing nonstop availability and low latency for fast performance at scale.
9. Extreme scalability: HPE Primera has made scaling high-end storage a breeze using multi-node transparent upgrades. Your storage needs are able to grow with the needs of your enterprise, intelligently adjusting to your unique business demands.
10. Hybrid cloud mobility: Extend your protection to the cloud. With less cost and complexity, HPE Primera’s cloud mobility delivers:

• Flash speed
• Application-integrated data protection
• Copy data management
• Data mobility

Seamlessly, securely, and cost-effectively move your enterprise’s data across primary, secondary, and private/public cloud tiers. With a simple cloud-based archive or disaster recovery option, you’re able to use your on-premises infrastructure for fast, reliable operational recovery.

Ready To Redefine Your High-End Storage?

HPE Primera is redefining high-end storage to ensure that modern needs are being met as simply and easily as possible. Problems that plague more traditional storage systems, such as risky upgrades and complex management systems, are fixed through intelligent design to keep enterprises going strong through their modernization efforts. If you’re ready to make the change now, contact WEI to begin building a custom solution for your business.

Next Steps: As the title of our refreshed executive brief eludes to, we have identified four smart storage strategies to help your company compete in today’s digital world. Such strategies have already proven to help companies be better prepared for their new normal. Click here to read and download

The post 10 Reasons HPE Primera Meets Your Enterprise High-End Storage Needs 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.

One of the greatest challenges faced by today’s enterprises is managing their ever-increasing volumes of data. Over time, the volume, location and importance of data have all evolved, and legacy solutions can no longer keep up.

Enterprises need a solution that can offer the support for not only the volume of data, but also differing file types, data locations, applications, and workloads. To meet this need, Qumulo has built a that directly fulfills the data-related needs of today’s enterprises.

In this two-part series, we are discussing the top 8 reasons should be a part of your cloud strategy. Check out part one for the first four ways that Qumulo is helping enterprises manage data.

5. Qumulo is a leader in data storage

Beyond the many customer reviews and testimonials in favor of the solution, Qumulo has also been recognized as a leader for the third year in a row in the .

by 2024, “large enterprises will triple their unstructured data stored as file or object storage on-premises, at the edge or in the public cloud, compared to 2020.”

For this and many other reasons, it’s more important than ever for enterprises to take charge of the way their data is handled, stored, and utilized.

6. Immense return on investment

Data management is often a time and resource sink, with many hours of administration needed from IT to properly secure and store it. For this reason alone, brings customers immense ROI just by reducing the amount of time typically needed by IT to administer the data platform.

Because Qumulo is programmable and infinitely scalable, Qumulo lets customers take advantage of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to move data as needed, making sure your applications and users have access whenever they need it.

Additionally, as helps enterprises simplify data management, customers will find that in addition to cost and time savings, the enterprise will be able to better utilize data to direct and improve business objectives.

7. Qumulo provides freedom of choice

When it comes to cloud computing, enterprises rarely utilize just one cloud platform. Qumulo supports this by offering customers the and the ability to choose environments on public cloud, in the data center, or at the edge.

File data can be integrated with any application on Windows, Mac, or Linux, and customers are not locked in with one specific vendor or infrastructure.

8. Qumulo lowers operational costs

In addition to the massive return on investment that Qumulo offers to customers, it also lowers operational costs in general. Data storage costs are lowered as customers use the full capacity of their storage, and there is no penalty for small files. This means that customers utilizing Qumulo in their data center will have more storage and less cost per-rack.

Other cost savings come from reduced staff time for data management and reduced hardware maintenance costs, as well as cost-effective performance supported by AI and machine learning.

Qumulo is revolutionizing data management

When building , Qumulo zeroed in on exactly what challenges IT professionals face when it comes to data management and set out to address them. With this customer-first approach, Qumulo is changing the data management game and transforming the way enterprises view data.

With the smarter data management provided by Qumulo, enterprises can see in real time what is happening with their data and make better business decisions. Should problems arise, the platform offers the visibility IT teams need to diagnose and fix them, instead of just buying more storage as a stop gap solution.

Are you interested in Qumulo?

As a leader in data management, Qumulo has helped enterprises around the globe manage over 200 billion files. From building smart cars, to vital disease research, enterprises around the world are changing the way they store and utilize data thanks to Qumulo.

This blog post is part of a 2-part series about the benefits of leveraging Qumulo for enterprise data management. If you missed the first post, click here to read part one.

NEXT STEPS: Continue reading about Qumulo in our tech brief below to learn how Qumulo is enabling high performance productivity across distributed enterprises and remote workforces.

The post 8 Reasons Qumulo Should Be Part Of Your Cloud Strategy, Part 2 appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

When it comes to challenges faced by today’s IT organizations, there are few as universal as data management. In the last two decades, the volume of data that enterprises are expected to utilize, secure, and manage has increased exponentially. The location of that data has also changed, with much of it moving to the cloud or hybrid environments.

Raising the stakes even further, the value of data has increased as well. An enterprise that isn’t making use of the data it has, isn’t securing it properly, or isn’t ensuring users have access to the data they need to be productive will fail.

To stay on top of this constant flow of data, enterprises require a solution that can offer the support for not only the volume of data, but also differing file types, data locations, applications, and workloads.

In this two-part series, we’ll discuss the top 8 reasons should be a part of your cloud strategy. This first article will share our first four reasons. (Read part 2 here.)

1. Qumulo simplifies management of enterprise data

Complexity is a major factor in the amount of time and resources IT must dedicate to data management. When it comes to managing cloud data, which may exist in a combination of private and public clouds, it gets even worse.

With Qumulo, enterprises gain a unified data management experience across on-premises, private, and public environments, offering , regardless of scale.

Several key features, including the ability to migrate applications to the cloud without rewriting/refactoring, the ability to automate DevOps workflows with advanced API, and a quick and easy setup process, all contribute to this simplicity.

Enterprises who make the switch will immediately see and experience the time and cost benefits of Qumulo’s simple management system.

2. Manage the full data lifecycle

To fully take advantage of the data collected by the enterprise, it can’t be inert. Data has its own lifecycle and through Qumulo, enterprises can manage each stage of it.

The cycle, , is as follows:

• Capture – The data is first captured by the enterprise
• Interact – The data begins to be interacted with by users at the enterprise
• Transform – The data is utilized and transformed for use by the enterprise
• Publish – The data is published for consumption by the enterprises target audience
• Archive – After running its initial course, the data is archived for later use or reference

With Qumulo, enterprises can manage data throughout its lifecycle with a single solution, giving IT unparalleled visibility across the enterprise and making it easy to find and catalogue individual pieces of data as necessary.

3. Proven in every industry

Data management is a problem for every enterprise, regardless of scale or industry, and Qumulo can assist with them all.

Whether your enterprise is in healthcare, media and entertainment, manufacturing, or anything in between, Qumulo can provide the cloud data management solution you need to be successful.

4. Qumulo has a broad range of use cases

Just as Qumulo can provide for enterprises in every industry, it also has a broad range of use cases.

Beyond just helping enterprises manage business data, Qumulo has a wide range of use cases from helping customers analyze data to develop new technologies, to providing support for video surveillance systems responsible for student safety, to supporting aerial imaging that is key to disaster response.

More than just data management

As detailed above, . By engaging with Qumulo, you can finally tap into the true potential of the data you collect and utilize it to not only inform your strategic decisions, but completely transform the way you do business.

Stay tuned for part two of this article series where we will discuss the next four reasons Qumulo should be part of your cloud strategy.

Are you interested in Qumulo?

As a leader in , 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.

This blog post is part 1 of a 2-part series about the benefits of leveraging Qumulo for enterprise data management. Continue on to part 2 here >>

NEXT STEPS: Learn 7 ways Qumulo can meet your data needs as you grow and scale in our tech brief below, “Critical Data Storage for a Distributed Enterprise.”

The post 8 Reasons Qumulo Should Be Part Of Your Cloud Strategy, Part 1 appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Change is inevitable but, for the IT industry in recent years, it’s been nothing short of significant and disruptive. The era of big data is providing enterprises significant opportunities to make better-informed business decision by leveraging analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning technologies.

Businesses who take advantage of this to respond quickly to evolving market demands are finding success, as long as their underlying IT infrastructures are transformed into something agile enough to keep up. This agility often means a significant departure from legacy storage and movement towards all-flash arrays, software-defined storage, and converged infrastructure. The availability of cloud-based services in particular is driving change: creating expectations about deployment, making it easier to securely share data across different constituencies, and introducing IT to new ways of thinking about easy scalability, frequent and nondisruptive upgrades, and technology refresh for IT infrastructure in general.

But there’s A downside

These high-end enterprise storage system scale to millions of IOPS and petabytes of capacity, deliver “six-nines” of availability, and offer a full complement of storage management or “data” services that enable dense mixed workload consolidation while still meeting individual application requirements. But despite the advantages, there are still a number of challenges to overcome:

• Don’t address application service availability. Even if a is 100 percent available, that doesn’t necessarily translate into application service availability. Storage causes 9.8 percent of the downtime in a typical datacenter, which means IT needs visibility into the other layers in the stack that deliver the application services and, when administrators use multiple tools to accurate diagnose and remediate these issues, they present more complex challenges and take longer to resolve.
• Designed for experts. The other side of the management flexibility coin is complexity. These systems often require very sophisticated storage management expertise for installation, configuring, and managing them to meet business objectives. Unfortunately, with storage management tasks moving away from dedicated administration teams and toward IT generalists, the knowledge can be lacking.
• Require constant tuning to address “noisy neighbor” concerns. Application changes, which happen on a regular basis, raise concerns about the ability to predictably meet performance requirements across a set of If systems do not offer sufficient capabilities to meet service-level agreements, then manual tuning is required to rebalance the system configuration – a time consuming process that requires sophisticated knowledge many administrators managing storage today don’t have.
• Impose disruptive, time-consuming, or risky upgrades. Technology upgrades to these systems can be disruptive, time consuming and fraught with risk. Moving to the next technology generation still generally requires a forklift upgrade, manual data migration, and incremental upgrades to firmware. Pre-validating and forecasting the “impact” of these types of upgrades depends on human involvement – both of which add time and risk.
• Have outdated technology “baggage.” System architectures originally designed during the hard disk drive era will not necessarily support the massive parallelization necessary to optimize the performance and capacity utilization of the solid state media that has already come to dominate high-end system shipments, and this factor can hinder workload consolidation and limit a system’s ability to deliver predictably consistent performance.

A new way to look at high-end storage

Keeping in mind that agility is the key requirement for today’s digitally transforming enterprises, the design of high-end storage systems needs to change. The more purpose-built, statically defined scale-up designs of the past need to give way to more software-defined, modular scale-out designs. Systems that were originally designed and optimized assuming the use of HDDs need to be optimized to take advantage of the latest solid state storage technologies (NVMe and NVMe over Fabrics).

These systems need to leverage AI/ML technologies, in combination with big data analytics and automation, to improve and simplify routine management tasks at the scale of today’s computing environments. They also need to be designed to operate in hybrid cloud environments, since this is clearly the blueprint for how IT infrastructure will be deployed going forward. And they need to offer all this while continuing to deliver the rich storage management functionality that enables secure, multitenant management from a proven storage OS that can scale to millions of IOPS, petabytes of capacity, and “six-nines plus” availability.

Reset the definition of high-end enterprise storage With HPE Primera

HPE offers significant choices to its customers in terms of deployment models for storage, delivering storage appliances; software-only, hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI); converged infrastructure; and cloud-based services in a storage portfolio that includes primary and secondary storage; block-, file-, and object-based platforms; scale-up and scale-out architectures; and the industry’s most mature cloud-based predictive analytics platform (InfoSight).

In introducing its new high-end storage system, HPE Primera, HPE is melding the simplicity of Nimble Storage, the mission-critical heritage of 3PAR, and the intelligence of InfoSight into a single high-performance, highly available, and highly scalable large enterprise storage solution. HPE has designed a new system architecture around a number of new features and technologies to provide a platform that delivers management simplicity without compromising its ability to support an enterprise’s most mission-critical workloads:

• Scale-out architecture to support massive parallelism. As a storage protocol technology, NVMe supports at least three orders of magnitude higher parallelism that SCSI. HPE Primera embraces this with a design that his highly optimized for solid state storage.
• A modular, service-centric design for the storage OS. The HPE Primera storage OS is not a monolithic software platform. It is instead built around a service-centric design that allows any feature to be added or modified without requiring a recompile of the entire OS.
• AI/ML-driven self-optimizing systems management. HPE Primera features very comprehensive and granular monitoring, with all the collected data immediately uploaded to HPE InfoSight. HPE InfoSight uses AI/ML to evaluate system performance, capacity utilization, energy consumption, and other metrics and combines that data with data collected from servers, networks, virtual machines, storage infrastructure software, applications, and cloud storage to generate a global view of a system or workload state at any point in time. This global view provides a better overall opportunity to optimize to specific objectives and/or troubleshoot infrastructure issues.
• Streamlined multinode hardware design. Internode communication requires no separate cables, all nodes plug into a passive backplane for much simpler configuration and higher reliability. The HPE Primera node-level building block is a high-density design that can house up to 1PB of effective capacity in 2U (or 2PB in 4U), with additional external storage capacity expansion available in both form factors. This building block node is designed as the hardware foundation for storage systems that can deliver 100% availability. In fact, as part of the HPE Primera announcement, HPE introduced a 100% availability guarantee on every single Primera system that does not require stretch cluster configurations or even a maintenance contract.

Ready for high-end enterprise storage? Give WEI a call.

HPE is the first established enterprise storage vendor to leverage these technologies to this extent, and has done so in a way that will set a new customer experience bar for high-end storage. Their design approach will drive significant value for customers, and more enterprise storage vendors are expected to move in the same direction with their solutions over the next few years. If you’re ready to make the change now, contact WEI to begin building a custom solution for your business.

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WEI often works with clients in both areas of backup and disaster recovery at the same time. We find it’s often beneficial for them to be part of a single strategy since the function of backup and DR relates so closely together (recovering from some sort of event). They do have slightly different goals, however. With backup, you might be looking at a smaller data loss, such as accidental deletion or corruption of files.

With DR, you might be looking at a wider event, such as the loss of a facility, or loss of systems. Considering both backup and DR together as one strategy is helpful because it influences where you place data, where you place your disaster recovery location, and how much it costs to achieve the results you want (in both CapEx and OpEx). Both sides of backup and DR should be factored together. They may ultimately be part of one comprehensive solution.

Let’s take a look at a few common scenarios you should factor in to your backup strategy.

Backup Scenario #1: File Restores

It should come as no surprise that the most frequent restore need comes from users wanting to restore individual files. Most of the time, people have to recover from human-error events. They may have to recover a deleted file, a deleted database or an accidentally deleted email. These tend to require the backup administrator to go back in time no later than 7 days to retrieve and restore an earlier version of the file from the backup set. More commonly, we see people needing to go back to yesterday, last night or the backup from two hours ago. Having to go back later than a week, two weeks or even six months is more often a rare occurrence.

In these cases, only storing a few days’ worth of backups on local storage often covers this type of failure scenario. If your organization stores these types of backups in the cloud and gets requests for earlier than seven days ago, you may need to build in more cost to restore. Not only can this type of cloud-based restore cost you more money, it may also take you longer.

Backup Scenario #2: Server Corruption

If a server becomes corrupted, many clients tell us, “Well, we’re just going to fail over to DR.” Many don’t realize all of the implications of doing that. For example, many customers’ networks are not set up to fail an individual component or an individual server from one location to the other. Some major network changes have to happen first when a server fails from one site to another. It does no good if the server comes up in your DR site but nobody can get to it because the network isn’t configured.

A client may tell us they are really concerned about recovering quickly from server corruption, a server crash, or a ransomware attack like CryptoLocker. Based on that concern, it can change how we architect backup and DR. We may opt to have client backups sitting on fast storage so that recovery can be fast and easy. In this case, though, we may also recommend storing those backups for only 2-3 days in order to reduce the cost on that type of storage. Then, after that first few days, we may recommend tiering the backup data. This can involve sending the backups to another storage tier that stores them for 30 days.

This type of scenario might involve a holistic and hybrid backup solution that involves more than one vendor. Rarely do we find one vendor who meets all of a company’s backup or DR requirements in one solution.

Sample Scenario #3: Virtual Server Environments

This scenario also dovetails with Scenario #2. This is because so many server environments are now virtualized. The proliferation of virtual server environments brings with it new opportunities to streamline and improve backup and DR operations. Unfortunately, this proliferation also brings with it new risks: Multiple virtual server environments may now exist on a single physical server. If something happens to that physical server, its downtime impact may be much more far-reaching.

Depending on the individual recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) for each virtual server environment, WEI may recommend replicating some servers offsite to a cloud provider, while other data is handled differently. There are also newer technologies that handle virtual environments differently than traditional backup applications that were built for the physical world. Some of these methodologies may make sense, like the use of virtual machine full image backups that no longer require individual backups or backup agents for each virtual server.

Protecting business data is always #1

If you’re using laptops, PCs, or cloud software to share and store critical data, this could cause problems on two fronts. First, in today’s workplace, employees expect 24/7 access to files and data from any location and on any device. If you’re not providing this capability, well-meaning employees often resort to “shadow IT” to maintain productivity. But if these are outside the control of IT, they leave files open to attack, and your business open to liability. Second, it’s not a matter of if devices will crash or get lost or stolen, but when. And while it can be challenging to make sure that everything is backed up and you’re ready for disaster, it’s also absolutely critical. If data loss could put you out of business for a few hours, or a few days, it’s time to consider a better solution.

with Windows Server and Microsoft Azure Cloud Services provide two use-case options. Configurations optimized for file data provide a central repository for files and data with fast performance so employees can collaborate more easily and securely. Configurations optimized for backup and disaster recovery help minimize downtime by protecting data and making it fast and easy to recover when disaster strikes. Both offer edge-to-cloud computing solutions with the ability to extend your on-premises solution with flexible, secure hybrid cloud options.

Luckily, HPE’s solutions for file and backup are simple to deploy, manage, and support. They’re a one-stop shop for packaged solutions including HPE ProLiant servers, storage, software, services, and top-selling options, all tested, optimized, and validated with Windows Server and Azure Cloud Services. They are based on HPE ProLiant Gen10 servers that are equipped to meet the needs of midsize businesses. They are ideal for the midsized enterprise in that they are equipped with sufficient CPU, memory, and storage resources to enable the server to be used for file and print, backup and recovery, and hybrid file and backup.

Next Steps: Learn more about how to effectively plan for hybrid backup strategies in our white paper below.

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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.

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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.

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Software defined storage (SDS) has the potential to revolutionize your business processes and drive extraordinary value. However, storage isn’t just measured by capacity. In our previous blog post, we laid out the example of thinking of your organization’s storage infrastructure like a virtual city: there are specific places designated for each type of data, from highly-utilized information to archives. Because of this, there is a true need for segmenting your resources; today, SDS is finally allocating true Automated Storage Tiering (AST) for enterprises. AST has created a natural and timely partnership with flash storage to offer the speed and performance that personal computing devices have enjoyed for years and many organizations are now considering all-flash based arrays to meet the demands of server virtualization.

The Case for Tier Separation

The from $1,409.7 million in 2014 to $6,217.6 million by 2019, at an estimated compound annual growth rate of 34.6 percent from 2014 to 2019. Your organization creates and demands all types of data, and each of these data classes summons different demands from your storage infrastructure. To meet these needs, your data infrastructure should be separated into multiple tiers.

For example, one type of data may require (and justify) incredibly high performance, no matter the cost, while other data classes only require modest performance at a reasonable cost. On the other end of the spectrum, long-term retention data and archived information can settle for minimum levels of performance.

A possible example of an Automated Storage Tiering design could look like this:

• Tier 0: Flash Storage.
• Tier 1: Production storage (prior to Flash storage, this used to be the top tier). High value data that is regularly utilized should reside here.
• Tier 2: Intermittent storage. Low cost/performance disks can be implemented for data that is only accessed every so often.
• Tier 3: Tape storage, which is necessary for required archives with strict government and industry regulations.

The idea of Automated Storage Tiering in an SDS environment is nothing new; it has been around for decades, but has previously lacked the intelligence mechanism to optimally implement it. Up until now, storage was assigned by age or some similar determinate that provided a best guess at tier assignments. Today, SDS systems use sophisticated algorithms that calculate usage and relative demand of data chunks. Then, data can be elevated or demoted between the available tiers.

Cloud Computing Makes Automated Storage Tiering Possible

The cloud is creating even greater opportunities for AST as more organizations are employing cloud-based storage. Cloud service providers and vendors are now offering storage devices that serve as a front-end storage appliance for the cloud. Rather than moving data between different physical hardware, these appliances shuffle data between local direct attached storage (DAS) locations and the cloud. They can also provide large caching depositories for data that is being saved off-premise.

The decisions organizations make are only as good as the data that is used to formulate them. We are in an era where the value of a company can be directly attributed not only to the value of its data, but the ease of its accessibility, and the capability and aptitude to analyze and process it. The decoupling of software from hardware is opening the door for new innovations and is giving IT managers the levels of data management and cost control that up until recently was only imaginable.

The benefits and value of SDS is being recognized by top industry leaders and future tech disruptors. Do you think it’s time for your organization to embrace SDS as well?

Read the white paper, to learn more, then to discuss which SDS solution is right for your business.

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