Cloud Computing: Logicalis US Calls Converged Storage a Catapult for Virtualization

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Analysts estimate that more than 2.2 million terabytes (or 2.2 exabytes) of data are created every day, and its all got to be stored somewhere. Clearly, this is a new world for IT, and legacy storage systems just aren’t cutting it; paying for dependable storage is costing many organizations as much as 20 percent of their annual IT budgets and is holding back efforts to extend virtualization and leverage advances in converged infrastructure and cloud computing. To help IT pros explore the ways they can move their storage systems down a converged infrastructure path,Logicalis US, an international IT solutions and managed services provider, has created a free, downloadable white paper, Storage for Converged Infrastructures, available here.

Storage has become such a key component of a converged infrastructure that the choice of storage systems is replacing servers as a driver of platform choices for IT departments, says Logicalis Vice President of HP Solutions Brandon Harris. The decision that organizations make about storage today is the linchpin to what their overall converged infrastructure is going to be tomorrow…

Three Key Features of Converged Storage:

1. Thin provisioning, which allows more capacity to be subscribed to virtual machines than they actually have, eliminating the waste of resources and space caused by unused over-allocated storage and streamlining capacity management for the storage and server teams.

2. Federated storage, which uses distributed volume management to shift workloads across storage devices managed as a single pool of resources.

3. Scale out architecture, which includes a combination of modular computers and standardized storage components to create federated storage pools. Scale-out storage addresses both the growth of unstructured data and the need to simplify data center operations. It also has the ability to failover to collocated facilities or disaster-recovery-as-a-service sites.

The term converged storage has, in many cases, already been upstaged by a new buzzword: software defined storage (SDS) and its bigger brother, software defined data centers (SDDC). Despite the nomenclature, this new architectural approach to storage makes it possible to run everything physical, virtual or cloud-based as a single entity that includes applications as well as information retention, security, analytics, and data protection tools. It gives end users the ability to create an environment for information retention and analytics that can archive and search within massive big data content repositories as well as protect that information in a data storage and backup environment that is both efficient and high speed.

A comprehensive converged infrastructure strategy can be implemented incrementally at a sustainable pace and cost. Logicalis advises to let storage take center stage. Many IT managers find that focusing specifically on implementing converged storage can accelerate, extend and enhance virtualization and literally create the space metaphorically and physically in which their converged infrastructure can take shape over time.

Want to Learn More?
Download Logicalis white paper, Storage for Converged Infrastructures.
Read a virtualization eBook, Virtualization 2.0: The Next Era in Enterprise Computing.
Learn how Logicalis+HP can help you embrace storage innovations.