It’s time for the SMB data center to come out of the closet. For far too long, many small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have operated their IT infrastructures on shoestring budgets by resorting to consumer grade systems, like laptops and desktops, to run their businesses. And to compound matters, often times these systems are not regularly maintained or looked after by a dedicated IT pro. Consequently, application performance could suffer and the business information that is stored on these devices could also be at risk.
Watch our On Demand Webinar "Three Reasons why an SMB's First Server Should be more than a NAS" and get an exclusive white paper.
Set and Forget?
The SMB storage management challenge is generally two fold. First, the systems they typically deploy are not equipped with the storage management, data protection or security features they need. Secondly, many of these systems are implemented by an outside consultant, stowed away in a closet and then forgotten about until something goes wrong. Consequently, the SMB needs a simple storage solution that’s easy enough for non-IT people to run but powerful enough to protect the business and its data. This system would need to seamlessly integrate with their existing application environment, while providing many of the management and data protection capabilities found on enterprise class storage systems.
Datacenter Class Protection
During a recent Storage Switzerland webinar, we discussed how SMBs can now deploy an affordable, all-in-one NAS server that provides a simple “out of the box” configuration that can run back-office applications like QuickBooks, Microsoft Office or any Windows based software program. These appliances run full server operating systems but are designed for the IT novice to implement and manage. In addition to their plug-and-play capabilities, they provide an intuitive user interface to allow even a part-time administrator to easily manage the appliance. In addition, some of these systems include point-in-time snapshot capabilities so that businesses can more easily protect data and have the ability to quickly recover lost or deleted files. And to maximize storage efficiency, data deduplication has also been integrated into some of these systems – allowing SMBs to reduce their data storage footprints.
Cloud Ready Storage
Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that some of these NAS appliances provide direct integration with cloud services like Microsoft Office 365. This enables SMBs to leverage the cloud for multiple use cases, like replicating data into the cloud for DR purposes or bursting application workloads into Microsoft’s Azure virtual server infrastructure to augment current, on premises server platforms. In short, these solutions give SMBs a simple option for leveraging the cloud without committing to a costly or complex dedicated cloud implementation.
Performance and Scale
But aside from the benefits of cloud integrated storage, SMBs can dramatically improve the local performance of their business applications by implementing a NAS storage appliance like the Western Digital (WD) Sentinel S-Series. In fact, WD’s DS 5100/6100 NAS provides some of the fastest file transfer capabilities to Win 8.1 clients. The system can be deployed with either dual or quad Xeon processors and can be configured with up to 16 TBs of enterprise class storage capacity, providing plenty of headroom for local storage growth.
In addition to full hardware redundancy throughout its compact 8”x9”x6” frame, the Sentinel S-Series appliance comes with the capacity to support 25 user clients and 50 of their devices. By allowing SMBs to support all of the end-users in their environment on to a single system, they can consolidate various storage devices that may be wedged into user cubicles or stowed away under a filing cabinet. This consolidation helps to minimize the risk of data going unprotected on “unknown” devices and in the long-run, can actually lower storage costs.
You can transform your SMB IT infrastructure to gain all the performance, data protection and efficiency benefits of a hybrid cloud storage solution, at an SMB price point. To learn how please click on the following link to view our on-demand webinar. By registering with BrightTalk, you will never have to re-register, plus you will have instant access to more than 100 Storage Switzerland on-demand webinars.
Click To Watch On Demand
Western Digital is a client of Storage Switzerland
As a 22 year IT veteran, Colm has worked in a variety of capacities ranging from technical support of critical OLTP environments to consultative sales and marketing for system integrators and manufacturers. His focus in the enterprise storage, backup and disaster recovery solutions space extends from mainframe and distributed computing environments across a wide range of industries.
StorageSwiss.com - The Home of Storage Switzerland 