Storing Up Trouble: The Definition of Software-Defined Storage in 2024

Transforming how organizations manage data, software-defined storage (SDS) offers a more flexible and efficient approach. The current state of SDS reflects a dynamic market driven by the need for greater scalability, cost-efficiency and agility in data management, especially as organizations grapple with ever-increasing data volumes and the shift toward cloud computing. SDS achieves this by abstracting storage services from the underlying hardware, offering unmatched flexibility compared to traditional storage solutions.

Benefits of software-defined storage

SDS offers numerous advantages for organizations managing data storage. By eliminating vendor lock-in, SDS provides flexibility to choose from a wider range of hardware and negotiate better pricing. Its scalability and agility stem from its ability to leverage commodity hardware or cloud resources, adapting to evolving storage needs.

Top 10 software-defined storage benefits:

1. Flexibility and agility: Enables rapid adaptation to changing requirements.
2. Scalability: Scales horizontally using commodity hardware or cloud resources.
3. Automation and orchestration: Automates storage tasks like provisioning and data management.
4. Data services: Provides advanced features like snapshots, deduplication, compression and encryption.
5. Cost efficiency: Reduces costs compared to proprietary storage solutions.
6. Multi-cloud and hybrid deployments: Supports multi-cloud and hybrid scenarios, thus allowing seamless data movement across environments.
7. Performance optimization: Allows fine-tuning of storage performance for specific workloads.
8. Data lakes and analytics: Integrates with data lakes, providing a unified storage layer for structured and unstructured data.
9. Resilience and high availability: Ensures data redundancy and high availability.
10. Metadata management: Improves search and retrieval through metadata management.

Tradeoffs of software-defined storage

While SDS offers many advantages, there are tradeoffs to consider. One of the main tradeoffs is the complexity of integration, particularly for organizations with existing traditional storage infrastructures. Integrating SDS might require a significant upfront investment in expertise or professional services. Additionally, the reliance on software in SDS can raise concerns about both performance and reliability. The abstraction layer may introduce latency while ensuring optimal performance requires robust management tools. Finally, some IT professionals might express concerns about the distributed nature of SDS and potential security vulnerabilities compared to traditional storage solutions.

Common use cases for software-defined storage

SDS proves versatile across various use cases. It significantly improves data protection strategies by offering flexibility for data backup and disaster recovery, potentially leading to improved recovery times. In virtualized environments like VDI, SDS provides efficient, scalable storage. Additionally, SDS supports DevOps practices by enabling rapid provisioning and de-provisioning of storage resources to align with development cycles. For Remote Office/Branch Offices (ROBOs), SDS leverages existing hardware for better utilization and simplifies deployment. Hybrid cloud configurations benefit from SDS' ability to facilitate seamless data movement between on-premises and cloud storage. Finally, SDS can ensure high availability (HA) for critical applications in the cloud or at the edge.

Platforms where you'd run software-defined storage (HCI, Cloud, DC and Edge)

SDS offers flexibility in deployment options. Organizations can leverage existing infrastructure by running it on hypervisors like VMware or adopt containerized deployments using Docker. Cloud-based deployments are also a common choice. Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is increasingly viewed as part of the SDS landscape, offering a complete solution for deploying SDS infrastructure.

Impacts on security

SDS presents a double-edged sword for security. SDS offers centralized management and automation, potentially enhancing security by streamlining consistent protection across storage resources. However, the software-defined nature introduces new vulnerabilities. Protecting the management layer from cyberattacks and ensuring the storage software itself is secure become paramount. Implementing strong access controls, encryption and regular vulnerability assessments are crucial for securing SDS environments.

Common software-defined storage platforms

Hub-and-Spoke

The Hub-and-Spoke model unlocks the full potential of SDS by streamlining data management and boosting efficiency. In this model, a central hub (the SDS controller) manages data distribution, ensuring streamlined access and faster data retrieval with reduced latency. Centralized data management also leads to cost savings through centralized optimization, eliminating the need for multiple point-to-point connections.

The hub's dynamic resource allocation allows for seamless scalability. As data grows, the hub can scale horizontally or vertically without service disruptions, enabling seamless expansion without downtime. Furthermore, centralized control provides consistent security policies, encryption and access controls, leading to improved data security and compliance.

Finally, managing the entire system becomes simpler. Customers interact with a single point—the hub—for provisioning, monitoring and troubleshooting. Spoke interchangeability simplifies hardware maintenance, freeing IT teams to focus on core business needs. The hub-and-spoke model also enhances disaster recovery through data replication, snapshots and failover, ensuring critical data remains accessible even during outages.

In summary, the hub-and-spoke model transforms SDS into a powerful solution for optimized distribution, cost reduction, and a secure, flexible data storage environment.

Container-based SDS

Container-based SDS takes software-defined storage to the next level, offering unmatched flexibility and agility for modern data storage needs. This approach allows you to seamlessly move workloads across any Kubernetes platform, on-premises, in the cloud or in hybrid environments. Unlike traditional storage solutions tied to specific vendors, container-based SDS is hardware-agnostic. This lets you leverage commodity servers, maximizing existing resources as your storage needs evolve. Furthermore, container-based SDS enables programmable storage management and automates storage tasks, streamlining management and freeing up IT resources. You can adjust configurations and scale up or down dynamically based on workload demands.

Container-based SDS also excels in scalability. It scales out horizontally, distributing data across multiple nodes. This lets you add capacity incrementally without relying on vertical scaling, resulting in better resource utilization. Finally, container-based SDS leverages existing hardware, reducing costs associated with proprietary storage solutions. It's a cost-effective way to meet storage requirements while maintaining performance.

Hybrid SDS

Hybrid SDS bridges the gap between on-premises storage and the cloud, offering the best of both worlds for data management. It allows you to scale resources on-demand by bursting to the cloud, providing flexibility for dynamic workloads. This hybrid approach optimizes costs by leveraging your existing on-premises infrastructure alongside cloud resources, eliminating unnecessary hardware expenses and streamlining operational costs.

Furthermore, Hybrid SDS enhances disaster recovery with geographically separated backups in the cloud, ensuring business continuity even during regional outages. Centralized management across hybrid environments simplifies administration. SDS solutions provide a single interface for data management, allowing you to benefit from consistent policies and streamlined operations. Finally, Hybrid SDS optimizes data placement based on workload requirements. By leveraging cloud resources, customers experience better performance while intelligent data distribution minimizes latency.

In summary, Hybrid SDS offers a powerful combination of on-premises control and cloud scalability, delivering cost savings, flexibility and robust data management for your organization.

A World Wide Technology client example

Let's walk through an example of a Cloud-based SDS solution that WWT helped architect for a client. First, let's define the problems the customer was experiencing with their native cloud storage solution:

• Was growing at such a rate that it was driving revenue out of the client's bottom line due to the cost of having to use high-performance storage
• Did not have storage efficiencies like dedupe, data tiering, snapshot, etc
• Did not offer robust high availability or region failover
• Did not offer a single management platform across cloud providers

How WWT helped

• WWT responded to the customer with a range of options that we could showcase in our ATC.
• Customer decided to go with Netapp CVO to test on their own environment.
• WWT installed CVO in the customer VPC  and showcased the following:
  • Install of CVO using Terraform.
  • Installed HA CVO instances between different availability zones and tested failover. (See Diag 1.1)
  • Set up replication between different regions and tested DR failover.
  • Tested performance and exceeded expectations.
  • Set up and tested tiering. (See Diag 1.2)
  • Set up central management across cloud providers.
  • Through CVO storage efficiencies and tiering, we were able to show the client their own monthly bill savings of 80 percent.

Conclusion

Buoyed by the successful proof of concept (POC), the customer deployed CVO across multiple cloud providers. This multi-cloud strategy has yielded significant cost savings, with the customer enjoying reductions of up to 80 percent compared to their previous storage approach.

World Wide Technology's role in SDS

The ever-evolving data landscape demands agile and scalable storage solutions. SDS emerges as a powerful answer, offering organizations improved efficiency, flexibility and cost savings. With its growing adoption, SDS is poised to become the cornerstone of modern data storage strategies.

**However, navigating the complexities of implementing and managing SDS can be a challenge. This is where World Wide Technology (WWT) steps in. WWT's expertise goes beyond just deploying SDS solutions. They offer a comprehensive approach, helping you evaluate your needs, select the right platform, integrate seamlessly with existing infrastructure and implement robust security measures. **

**By partnering with WWT, you can maximize the value of your SDS investment and optimize your overall storage strategy for better business outcomes. **