Best Software Defined Storage (SDS) Solutions
Software-Defined Storage Solutions (SDS) encompasses a range of application and policy defined storage provisioning, storage virtualization and storage management automation. Related to software-defined networks (SDN) and datacenters (SDDC), SDS essentially decouples physical infrastructure as a constraint to storage management to the extent possible.
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StarWind Virtual SAN is software-defined storage for efficient storage and backup.
Nutanix in San Jose, California offers their software-defined Enterprise Cloud as a hyper-converged infrastructure solution. The Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure solution combines the Nutanix Acropolis virtualization solution, Nutanix AHV hypervisor (though Acropolis works with other…
IBM® Storage Ceph® is a software-defined storage platform that consolidates block, file and object storage to help organizations eliminate data silos and deliver a cloud-like experience while retaining the cost benefits and data sovereignty advantages of on-premises IT.
Quobyte’s 100% software solution simplifies file and object storage. Downloaded and installed in minutes by end users, Quobyte can run on inexpensive, off-the-shelf commodity servers.
Scalable and regenerative by design, Quobyte automatically removes damaged hardware and restores redundancy by using…
VMware vSAN is an enterprise-class storage virtualization software that provides a simple path to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and multi cloud. VMware vSAN is no longer sold as a standalone product and is now available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation.
IBM Storage Scale (formerly IBM Spectrum Scale) supports storage management of unstructured data for big data analytics.
OpenIO is a software-defined open source object storage solution ideal for Big Data, HPC and AI. With its distributed grid architecture and self-learning ConsciousGrid™ technology, OpenIO scales instantly without mandatory data rebalancing, while delivering consistent high…
StorMagic SvSAN is a hyperconverged storage solution that provides lightweight, high availability in 2-node clusters. It allows organizations to deploy thousands of clusters as easily as one, on any x86 hardware, to ensure 100% uptime.
StorPool is a block-storage software that uses standard hardware and builds a storage system out of this hardware. It is installed on the servers and creates a shared storage pool from their local drives in these servers. Compared to traditional SANs, all-flash arrays, or other storage…
StarWind SAN & NAS is an HCL-certified software-defined shared storage for VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V. The solution also enables the user to repurpose servers into certified backup targets if they are using Veeam. StarWind SAN & NAS, as a Linux-based VM, leverages…
IBM Elastic Storage Server (IBM ESS) is a software-defined storage option.
DataCore Swarm is a software-defined Object Storage solution for on-premises and private cloud environments. The solution helps to ensure rapidly scaling datasets are continuously protected and instantly accessible while eliminating tedious storage management, reducing TCO, and enabling…
Acronis Cyber Infrastructure is a software-defined infrastructure solution that…
DataCore SANsymphony software-defined storage aims to deliver flexibility, scalability, and cost-efficiency in a HCI platform. Powered by a block-level storage virtualization technology, SANsymphony is designed to provide flexibility to control how data is stored, protected, and…
NetApp's ONTAP Data Management Software is a storage and data management and protection solution. ONTAP 9 allows users to build an intelligent hybrid cloud that is the foundation of a NetApp Data Fabric that spans flash, disk, and cloud. Flexibly deploy storage on a choice of…
Atlas Core is OpenDrives’ software-defined platform, whether on-premises, cloud, or hybrid, presented as the force behind the Open ecosystem of content workflow enablement solutions. Born out of M…
Cisco Cloud Object Storage (COS) provides distributed, resilient, high-performance storage and retrieval of binary large object (blob) data. Object storage is distributed across a cluster of hardware systems, or nodes. The storage cluster is resilient against hard drive failure within…
OSNEXUS headquartered in Bellevue makes the QuantaStor Software Defined Storage (SDS) platform. QuantaStor bare-metal installs on standard servers to deliver unified file, block, and object storage in a single platform. QuantaStor boasts a unique storage grid technology. Grid technology…
Elastifile, founded in 2013 and headquartered in Santa Clara, provides software to help deploy private and hybrid cloud storage solutions; they define this is a software-defined bring-your-own-hardware storage, and emphasize the elasticity and scalability gained from their software-…
Learn More About Software Defined Storage (SDS) Solutions
What are Software Defined Storage (SDS) Solutions?
Software-defined-storage (SDS) solutions are alternative data storage programs where the storage resources are decoupled from the underlying physical hardware. This makes them more flexible than traditional storage area network (SAN) or network-attached storage (NAS) programs that are attached to the hardware. SDS programs typically run on either the server operating system (OS) or virtual machines (VM). But certain programs may run on a hypervisor kernel which allows for multiple VMs to be used simultaneously on one device.
These programs are also related to software-defined networking (SDN) and the software-defined data center (SDDC) architecture. These products reflect a broader industry-wide shift towards the virtualization of software-related functions such as storage, networking, and security.
SDS solutions have become very popular for recently for a few key reasons including:
- the evolving and increasingly unstructured nature of data
- increasing customer need for data virtualization capabilities
- rising demand for cloud storage technologies
Common SDS use cases include:
- DevOps
- Workflow automation
- Virtualized desktop infrastructure (VDI)
- Data security and protection
- Data management of integrated public and private cloud systems
- Providing better data access for remote offices
- Increasing data storage efficiency by eliminating silos
- Extending the life of more traditional storage systems
‘Scaling Out’ vs. ‘Scaling Up’ Storage Capacities
‘Scaling-out’ is an alternative to the more traditional 'scaling-up' method of increasing storage capacity. It involves adding additional storage space with SDS products that do not need to be physically attached to the hardware underneath.
Scaling-up storage involves adding more physical storage - such as disk drivers - to the original storage infrastructure to increase capacity. One drawback of scaling-up storage is that there is a limited amount of upgrading that can be done. In comparison, when scaling-out storage, there is essentially no limit to the amount of storage resources that can be added.
SDS Solutions Features and Capabilities
Most SDS products include a number of features and capabilities targeting storage management and functionality such as:
- Abstraction of storage resources from the underlying hardware
- Virtualization of pooled storage resources
- Ability to manage pooled storage via one administrative interface
- Policy-based management of storage resources
- Ability to increase storage capacity through scaling-out the system across a server cluster
- Compatibility with industry-standard hardware (x86 servers and API)
- Access to different types of storage interfaces such as block, file, and object storage
However, there are a multiple storage options to consider when selecting an SDS product. These include different scale-out and/or block, file, and object options, container-based software, virtualized software, and hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software.
Benefits of SDS
There are several benefits of using an SDS solution compared with traditional SAN or NAS style storage. Most importantly, they allow the user to update storage capacity while not altering the underlying physical hardware. They also enable the expansion of existing storage capacity to a virtually unlimited degree.
SDS products also offer cost related benefits which include:
- lower upfront and operational costs
- buyers avoid being ‘locked in’ to one software vendor (since they not tied to any specific hardware)
- eliminate costs by ‘scaling out’ current storage capacity and adding on additional storage resources as needed
Pricing
The standard pricing model for storage software has been per GB, along with installment and upgrading costs. However, SDS vendors offer products whose prices are more dependent on use case, length of use, and amount of storage needed. Therefore prices may not be very standardized.
Vendors typically do not disclose price information on their website but provide it upon request.