Primary storage refresh projects usually start from some combination of need for more performance, more capacity or because the storage system is coming off of maintenance. A key feature IT professionals look for in new primary storage system is flash. They want either all-flash or a hybrid system. Flash should certainly be a key requirement of any new storage system. More importantly, however, is understanding how the storage system will use flash. There are also consideration beyond flash, concerning new demands like collaboration, file sharing, compliance and archiving.
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Flash is Still Job One
For any primary storage refresh flash is the top feature IT professionals look for because it addresses their number one complaint, storage performance, head-on. But how vendors implement flash is an important consideration. If your organization is like most, 85 percent of your data is not changing on a daily basis. If hard drive capacity is still less expensive (and it is) then do you really need an all-flash array? Flash also enables organizations to scale capacity further, since they don’t have to worry about disk IO contention. You can simply put more capacity per storage system and not have to worry about impacting performance.
Collaboration
With two basic motivations for storage refresh addressed, IT professionals need to look beyond the classic reasons to upgrade. Organizations are no longer single site entities. Instead, they have offices around the world. In the same way, employees are spread out and constantly mobile. These realities create the need to sync, share and distribute data. Current storage system lack these collaboration capabilities, as a result cloud-based file sync and share solutions are popular and have created a new problem for organizations, shadow IT. Instead of embarking on a whole new service, the storage system might be the better place to manage collaboration and is a capability that IT professionals should look for in their next storage system.
Compliance and Archiving
While the capacity capabilities of new primary storage systems may lead IT professionals to think they are suitable to hold all data, for all time, the reality is that they are not. Instead of trying to be all things to all storage demands, primary storage systems should also include direct integration to secondary storage systems for archive, data protection and ransomware protection.
Join us for our on demand webinar “Storage Refresh? 3 Capabilities Primary Storage Must Have (but probably doesn’t)” we discuss primary storage refreshes. Flash is a given but how should it be integrated. Plus what else should you demand from primary storage?
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George Crump is the Chief Marketing Officer at VergeIO, the leader in Ultraconverged Infrastructure. Prior to VergeIO he was Chief Product Strategist at StorONE. Before assuming roles with innovative technology vendors, George spent almost 14 years as the founder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland. In his spare time, he continues to write blogs on Storage Switzerland to educate IT professionals on all aspects of data center storage. He is the primary contributor to Storage Switzerland and is a heavily sought-after public speaker. With over 30 years of experience designing storage solutions for data centers across the US, he has seen the birth of such technologies as RAID, NAS, SAN, Virtualization, Cloud, and Enterprise Flash. Before founding Storage Switzerland, he was CTO at one of the nation's largest storage integrators, where he was in charge of technology testing, integration, and product selection.
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