Invest in the right flash storage solution; a guide for the savvy tech buyer

You’re looking at flash storage because you see it’s taking the storage world by storm. You’re interested in accelerating business-critical applications, ...

You’re looking at flash storage because you see it’s taking the storage world by storm. You’re interested in accelerating business-critical applications, consolidating a virtual server or desktop deployment, trying to get ahead of your company’s data onslaught, or some combination of the above.

What about the cost of flash?

You’ve heard it time and time again, “We want higher performance and we’ve got to store more data with less resources, at the lowest possible cost.” Flash is a no-brainer answer to the performance requirements, however, until recently flash vendors could not compete with spinning disk prices, which is now at $1.50 per GB or lower. Flash can also save up to 80% space or more compared to HDD-based solutions.

What to look for:

  • Data compaction technologies
  • Drive capacity and system density
  • Moving live data

TVAR cycle

Is performance the same for every flash array?

The performance bottleneck has shifted from the drives within the array, to the ability of the controllers to perform (cores, memory) and scale (multi-controller). When it comes to performance, flash arrays vary widely, not just in terms of performance, but in terms of consistency and predictability of performance.

What to look for:

  • Scalable, consistent and predictable performance
  • Deduplication only where you need it
  • IOPS, latency, and bandwidth
  • Performance during failures
  • Flash optimized architecture

Why keep talking about resiliency and scale?

It’s important to know that when it comes to flash arrays, enterprise-class resiliency and ability to scale are not always a given. There’s no point in having the power of flash if you are out of available capacity or it’s not available 24/7, 365 days a year.

Plus, enterprise-class features like synchronous/asynchronous replication, live data migration, and transparent data center failover solutions might seem like table stakes these days in tier-1 storage, but not so in the new world of all-flash arrays. Many “new” all-flash arrays lack these enterprise-class data services. Some deliver them using external appliances, and that only adds cost, complexity, and downtime. A true enterprise-class solution can give you 99.9999% availability even under failure conditions.

What to look for:

  • Proven enterprise-class
  • Bulletproof your data
  • Data center test feature set
  • Modern scale

What about backup/recovery?

The availability of your data is critical to your business operations. On those rare occasions when system failures occur, you need to be ready and able to provide uninterrupted service. That means data must be efficiently backed up and immediately recoverable, without adding unnecessary overhead or cost to day-to-day operations.

What to look for:

  • Application-integrated data protection
  • Simple and efficient backups
  • Reduced risk exposure

TVAR HPE

If you would like to learn more about HPE and their flash offerings please visit here so we can discuss further.

 

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