Industry voice: Don't be conned over software-defined storage: how to spot the real deal

We are rapidly entering the era of the software-defined enterprise, where all IT resources will be managed, provisioned and stored virtually. In fact, Gartner has identified "software-defined anything" as one of its top ten strategic technologies, an accolade given to technologies the analyst house believes have "the potential to have a significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years". As a key element of the software-defined category, software-defined storage is already seeing significant market traction. Many of our customers are already adopting the technology and enjoying business benefit as a result. Others are enquiring about how they can start to migrate towards it. Software-defined storage has therefore clearly moved from hype to business value, but why now?Unending data growth and modern applications The key drivers behind software-defined storage are massive data growth and the changing nature of applications. First, the exponential growth in unstructured content is prompting enterprises to seek lower cost alternatives to traditional storage systems. Secondly, businesses need to develop powerful new applications that exploit megatrends such as mobility and big data analytics.Consequently, enterprises need a new approach to storage that can change the trajectory of their rising storage costs and facilitate the development and deployment of modern web, mobile and big data applications and services. The public cloud seemed to be able to meet these requirements. Through platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings businesses have been able to develop the apps they want without having to invest in proprietary infrastructure. Concurrently, public cloud providers used software-defined storage and commodity infrastructure to cost effectively store petabytes of data in the cloud.This approach is fine, and for many businesses, more than suitable. However, as is ever the case in IT, one size inevitably does not fit all. Some enterprises do not want to relinquish control of data and applications to public cloud providers. Yes, they may wish to use a cloud development platform, but why should it follow that the application is then automatically stored in the public cloud? What if the customer would prefer to host it on-premise?The fact of the matter is in some cases businesses simply do not want to be tied in to a public cloud provider. For this reason a new generation of open-PaaS offerings, such as Cloud Foundry and OpenShift, have become increasingly popular. Services such as these provide enterprises with the cloud development tools they need, without tying them to a public cloud.To complete the picture, however, enterprises need a storage infrastructure that can offer the scale and economics of public cloud providers, but within their own data centres. The real value of software-defined storageAt present the majority of businesses use mixed, heterogeneous multi-vendor storage environments that were built for an older generation of applications. If they are to use the applications they want to use without relying on public cloud storage then businesses need a simple, low-cost, scale-out alternative – and one that does not require building a new purpose-built array for each new application (unconscionable both in terms of cost and work hours). This is where software-defined storage really proves its value, by delivering scale-out storage based on whatever infrastructure the customer wants – including hugely cost-effective commoditised hardware. It allows business to build storage capabilities at the same economies and hyper-scale that previously was only available to the likes of Amazon and Google. When it comes down to it, this is the reason why software-defined storage is proving so popular: it enables enterprises to build a modern, hyper-scale storage infrastructure that leverages commodity platforms. Moreover, with support for industry standard object storage APIs, it accelerates development of modern applications, allows businesses to build the applications they want and then run them where they want (i.e. in a private cloud if required) – and at a low cost, and with a simple management interface.As with all technology success stories, software-defined storage is moving beyond hype because it so clearly delivers what businesses are crying out for.Getting the real dealAs a new technology, however, business understanding of software-defined storage has not yet caught up with the tech itself. Unfortunately this means that it is all too easy for truly software-defined storage solutions to be lost amongst other products that claim to be software-defined but, in fact, are not.In some cases a software-defined 'whitewash' has been applied to products that have been around for years and businesses must take care to ensure that what they are buying is the 'real deal'.So how can they do that? First and foremost, a truly software-defined storage solution should be vendible as a pure software play. Certainly there is value in delivering the software as part of an integrated appliance. However, if the software requires proprietary hardware, this is usually a hint that all is not well. Software-defined storage worthy of its name must be able to support third-party commodity hardware so that the customer, if they wish to, could 'rack and stack' their own system (although this is of course not mandatory and the vendor can still, if required, build the system for the customer).A truly software-defined storage solution will, moreover, deliver two things to businesses. Firstly it will deliver management and automation capabilities that enable businesses to extract maximum value from their existing storage resources. It does this by abstracting existing storage assets into a virtual, software layer. This allows users to manage physical storage resources over a simple-to-use digital interface and automate provisioning. This makes a business' storage assets as easy to manage as those found in a typical public cloud alternative and delivers business advantage from day one.Secondly, it offers hardware independence. For example, an organisation could use existing file storage capacity to store object data. This means that businesses can test REST-based applications on file based arrays before making a call on whether to invest in a dedicated scale-out infrastructure. If the latter, software-defined storage then allows the business to build a commodity infrastructure for the application without needing to rewrite the application itself. Step-by-step, businesses can create a storage infrastructure best suited to each individual application in a cost effective manner and with complete control. The competitive imperativeThe impact software-defined storage is already having on businesses should not be underestimated. By providing hyper-scale at the right cost profile it is delivering to all businesses capabilities that have traditionally only been available to a handful of technology specialists.By so doing it is opening up the power of private cloud, mobile and big data applications to all. As Gartner has identified, the time is now ripe for all organisations to start migrating to software-defined storage. For those that make the journey the soonest, the benefits will be felt in terms of a business agility that will leave competitors trailing far behind. Kate Canestrari is Director of Product Marketing, EMC Advanced Storage Division

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