Software Defined Storage (SDS) Solutions
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StarWind Virtual SAN is software-defined storage for efficient storage and backup.
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QCT, a Quanta Computer company headquartered in San Jose, offers QxStor software-defined storage (SDN).
The combination of enterprise-grade tools and data services make StoneFly SCVM capable of facilitating numerous use-cases and scenarios, promises the vendor. Users can configure file storage, development and test environments, archive storage, and back up storage repositories with…
The 2u24 Flash Storage Platform is enterprise flash storage for software defined storage (SDS), designed to address the demanding storage needs of large enterprises and cloud service providers requiring dense, shared flash storage. Western Digital acquired the product line from the…
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Western Digital offers the Ultrastar hybrid storage, JBOD system for software defined storage, including the Ultrastar Data102 and Ultrastar Data60.
The Western Digital Ultrastar Serv Series is a line of flash, software defined storage (SDS) optimized solutions available in the Serv24 series. The Serv series includes the Serv24, Serv24-4N, Serv24HA, Serv24-A, Serv24+6 and Serv60+8 hybrid storage series.
Nexenta, now from DDN (acquired May 2019), offers what they present as flexible, scalable & cost effective enterprise grade, multi-protocol scale-up/scale-out software-defined storage solution. According to the vendor, Nexenta’s flagship Software Defined Storage (SDS) solution,…
Buurst SoftNAS is an enterprise virtual software NAS available for AWS, Azure, and VMware that provides NAS features in the cloud with a virtual software appliance. Boasting low cloud storage cost fees, SoftNAS is available with 2-factor authentication, Bulk data migration from on-…
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…
Croit is a software-defined storage/ storage management solution from the small German company of the same name. The solution stack is divided into several modules, all based on the core platform that creates a highly available basic structure. All other servers that needed for storage…
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&E, OpenDrives boasts a deep understanding of the complex and data-intensive workflows…
Server Q, Qumulo’s software-defined architecture, is designed to run bare metal on Linux on a wide variety of qualified hardware platforms. Server Q users select the server that is most suitable for any workload requirements and aligns with business’ procurement practices, with an…
SwiftStack was a software-driven data storage and management platform for data-intensive applications and workflows, designed to provide seamless access to data across the edge, core data centers, and public clouds. It was acquired by NVIDIA in 2020 and is no longer available for…
To control unstructured data growth and NAS sprawl across an organization, DataCore vFilO is designed to let users centrally manage file and object data storage, as well as NAS devices, to optimize capacity and lower storage costs across on-premises, cloud and hybrid infrastructures.…
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…
Huayun's ArcherOS is a data center virtualization solution that provides an abstraction layer to create and manage logical pools of resources to meet business needs, by maximizing resource utilization. The ArcherOS Stack includes the ArCom software-defined storaage solution, ArNet…
HP StoreVirtual VSA was software defined storage, from HPE replacing the former LeftHand P4000 VSA. It reached EOL March 2019.
Red Hat® Hyperconverged Infrastructure provides co-located, scalable, software-defined compute and storage. It is based on the company's Openstack and virtualization platform, and automated with Ansible, also by Red Hat.
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…
StorSafe is the latest release of FalconStor's, headquartered in Austin, VTL product. It is a 100% software product that runs on industry-standard servers, or in any cloud as a VM, to provide a next-generation virtual tape library that FalconStor presents as scalable, state-of-the-…
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.
Nutanix Unified Storage is a software-defined storage (SDS) solution used to intelligently manage and share data, aimed at replacing storage silos that limit visibility, block access, and slow innovation. The software-based unified storage solution is built upon clustered, shared-…
StarWind Backup Appliance (BA) is designed to help organizations eliminate the dependency of their production environment on the backup processes. Powered by NVMe storage, it removes the common backup repository performance bottleneck and the need to plan and fit into a specific…
Acronis Cyber Infrastructure is a software-defined infrastructure solution that can be deployed on industry-standard hardware or comes in an easy-to-deploy, plug-and-play appliance. It is used to store and manage more than 200 PB of data backed up from more than 125,000 servers, PCs…
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.