DCIG is pleased to announce the immediate availability of the 2022-23 DCIG TOP 5 Enterprise SDS Universal Storage Solutions report. This report provides guidance on TOP 5 solutions enterprise organizations should consider for SDS-based universal storage.
Background: Enterprise Storage Challenges
It is little surprise that data is growing faster than enterprise IT budgets. The latest figures suggest 23% growth rates for the data the world generates and replicates. On-premises data storage and off-premises cloud storage both reflect these same double-digit gains. In comparison, IT spending will increase by 3.6% this year.
Several factors are driving this data growth. More devices and applications are creating more data. File sizes have increased. And organizations are under pressure to keep data for longer periods.
For many organizations, the new norm is petabytes of data under management.
SDS – Affordable, Efficient, Flexible
The emergence of software-defined storage (SDS) over the last decade has changed the paradigm for purchasing storage as an appliance with proprietary software bound to its hardware. SDS separates the software from its underlying hardware. Decoupling the software from its physical storage brings many benefits.
Where early applications for SDS were limited, on-premises use-cases, maturing SDS offerings have brought expanded features and deployment options. SDS has reached out of the data center to the cloud. Organizations can tier data to cloud storage and even run
SDS in the cloud for hybrid and multi-cloud storage solutions.
Today, SDS can be found everywhere data is stored, in IoT devices, edge locations, data centers, the public cloud, and multi-cloud storage architectures. These wide options for SDS deployment allow organizations to move and store data where needed most for cost, performance, security, and workload priorities.
Use-cases for Universal Storage
Universal storage allows organizations to replace multiple traditional storage systems with a single consolidated storage platform. With universal storage, storage administrators may configure, store and present block, file, and object access to their enterprise applications. With its features and benefits, universal SDS emerges as a preferred choice for a wide variety of use cases.
Primary storage. A central way organizations can leverage SDS is as a target for primary storage. As a common capability, SDS solutions support storage needs for virtual machines. Because of SDS’s scalability features, IT departments enjoy the flexibility to add or shrink capacity as required, whether for block, file, or object storage requirements.
Databases. As universal SDS supports SAN workloads, administrators may use SDS for storing databases and other applications requiring block-level access. Quality of Service (QoS) features within some SDS solutions ensure the priority of block data workloads.
NAS replacement. SDS becomes an ideal use for providing files services in place of legacy NAS appliances. As more capacity may be needed, administrators can expand the solution or automatically tier off cold data to archive storage or the cloud to free up space.
Cloud-native workloads. Enterprises are using on-premises object storage to develop, test, and deploy applications made for a cloud computing architecture. Developing these applications on-premises enables developers to work out issues before transitioning these workloads to the cloud—or serve data to cloud-native applications being brought back to the data center from the cloud.
Backup and archive. Backup and archive operations remains a critical function for enterprise storage. Organizations can integrate SDS with popular enterprise backup applications and use their SDS solutions for backup and archive. Monetization opportunities open as organizations avail their backup and archive storage of AI/ML workloads to extract business insights.
Persistent storage for Kubernetes. Containers represent a new future for abstracting workloads and applications from the underlying storage infrastructure. Organizations can use SDS for container storage needs. As a point of interest, each of DCIG’s TOP 5 solutions provides a Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver to expose block and file data to containerized workloads. Several SDS solutions offer advanced storage management features for Kubernetes environments.
Universal SDS for Today’s Enterprise Storage Needs
Today’s enterprises benefit from affordable, efficient, flexible storage solutions like Universal SDS that support diverse environments, workloads, protocols, and media. These solutions make data available to applications and users, whether the focus is capacity or performance.
It is benefits and use cases like the above that drive SDS’s nearly 26% growth rate. And it is why IT leaders serve their stakeholders well by considering Universal SDS for their organizations.
2022-23 DCIG TOP 5 Enterprise SDS Universal Storage Solutions
DCIG evaluated fourteen SDS-based solutions for a universal, multi-protocol use case. The general feature categories evaluated include:
- Deployment capabilities
- Data protection
- Product and performance management
- Technical support
- Licensing and pricing
Based on its evaluation of these features, the following storage solutions earned DCIG TOP 5 award (in alphabetical order):
- Commvault Distributed Storage
- NetApp ONTAP Select
- Red Hat Ceph Storage
- Veritas InfoScale
- VMware vSAN
Report Availability
The full DCIG TOP 5 report is available for free download at the link below. The full report contains additional details such as:
- A listing of all fourteen solutions evaluated
- Distinguishing features shared by all TOP 5 solutions
- A deeper explanation of the key similarities and differences between the TOP 5 solutions
- A profile of each solution that highlights notable features that earned it a DCIG TOP 5 award.
Confidentiality and Copyright
Other than excerpts published in this announcement, the contents of the 2022-23 DCIG TOP 5 Enterprise SDS Universal Storage Solutions report are copyrighted and may not be republished without permission.
Individuals may access the full report at no cost by following the link below.
2022-23 DCIG TOP 5 Enterprise SDS Universal Storage Solutions
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