Intelligent data storage solutions are the need of the hour!

Data Storage industry is changing from time to time and currently the present enterprise IT trend is to go for a solution which works with intelligence. Optimized for various application needs, storage operating environments will play an increasingly strategic role in delivering the most advanced and cost-effective storage services over the next several years.

Customers who choose storage hardware with the appropriate level of intelligent operating environments will achieve greater performance, reliability and the ability to exploit new capabilities over time at much lower costs than those who choose storage hardware purely based on raw speeds and feeds.

Therefore, here’s an article which throws some light on the benefits offered by intelligent operating environments, the increasingly important business benefits they will deliver, and the key features which impress the storage buyers, along with an example of a data storage operating system.

Traditionally speaking, when evaluating server hardware, IT managers don’t first choose the microprocessor inside the box or the hardware vendor who makes the box. But instead, they first choose which operating system ( such as Linux, Windows, Unix or Z/os) will run the apps they need, cost less when it comes to management and maintenance, and will be fully supported by a vendor who will provide quality support and a smooth migration path to new technologies.

So, in a similar way, the current trend in the storage market resembles the server market which used to prevail some years ago but with a petite difference. Nowadays, IT heads are thinking less about chips and specs and more about strategic software capabilities made possible through the intelligent operating environment.

Leading-edge customers are already demanding key capabilities in the operating environments that ship with their storage subsystems. There are five capabilities, each of which have varying importance and depends the customer’s organizations size, types of applications they run and other requirements.

• First and foremost trait which has to be carried by an intelligent SAN is to provide immense parallelism; so that, enabling a multitude of activity to take place concurrently.
• It ensures the prioritization of tasks and overall adaptability, so performance levels are met regardless of circumstance and the system adapts easily to changes in workloads, hardware failures, etc.
• Assure to end-to-end integrity of the hardware, software and application environment.
• Offer access to the broadest range of powerful storage applications to protect, manage and share critical corporate information.
• Demonstrate a proven track record of maturity in the architecture’s stability and robustness.

So, when a SAN with an intelligent operating system has all these traits, it helps the IT environment of an enterprise achieve higher performance and uptime, reduce hardware purchases through more efficient use of existing storage and reduced long-term management costs.

Now for those, who are interested in knowing a SAN storage solution which drives on intelligent operating system, StoneFly Inc., a subsidiary of Dynamic Network Factory offers its products tucked with this feature.

Its StoneFusion, which is an award winning and patented network operating system, brings in block level storage intelligence to the IP network core. StoneFly’s StoneFusion powered SANs deliver all the benefits of managed SANs such as increased storage utilization through resource consolidation, storage provisioning, centralized access control, volume management, and advanced storage services including Active/Active clustering, mirroring, replication, encryption, snapshots and thin provisioning.

StoneFusion has the power to virtualize physical storage resources into virtual volumes and enables advanced storage functions in a virtual network layer. It acts as a foundation of all StoneFly SAN products lines and makes the IT admin have the power of SAN at their finger tips. It controls the flow of data to and from the physical storage device, as well as within the device architecture such as RAID arrays and virtual storage.