software defined storage rev. 2.0

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Maximise availability, increase performance and reduce costs

Software Defined Storage

HIGH AVAILABILITY & DATA SECURITY

INTELLIGENT & FLEXIBLE STORAGE SOLUTIONS

EASY MANAGEMENT

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The IT landscapes of many SMBs and large organisa-

tions often feature heterogeneous storage infrastruc-

tures with distributed storage systems, remote man-

agement tools and high operating and admin costs.

Alongside server consolidation and virtualisation, the

focus is increasingly on storage systems as the stored

data is a company’s essential asset. Data is vital to

ensure a seamless transaction of critical business

processes in your organisation.

Application scenario: high performance

Performance improvements over the

last 10 years

CPU 8-10x

DRAM 7-9x

Network 100x

Bus 20x

DISK ONLY 1.2x

If data becomes unavailable, production stops, deliv-

ery deadlines cannot be met and an organisation suf-

fers a drop in sales.

A vast range of systems and technologies are avail-

able on the market. This is why it makes sense for com-

panies to cooperate with an experienced IT service

provider such as ttec to analyse which products

and solutions are best suited for their application

requirements.

Data is the lifeblood of any company

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5%

Although the average IT budget grows by a

maximum of 5% each year, the IT landscape

is faced with increasingly more tasks that it

has to manage within the organisation.

Virtualising servers and storage systems has become

a vital part of an organisation’s IT strategy, no matter

how small the company is. The key objectives behind

virtualisation include optimising hardware resources

by consolidating them, increasing flexibility and

reducing the costs for energy, cooling or space re-

quirement. Storage virtualisation, just as server vir-

tualisation, leverages the existing physical resources,

centralises and simplifies management and can in-

crease availability by deploying live migration. In this

way, your administrators can transfer virtualised

environments from a physical server to another with-

out any system or operating downtimes.

Storage virtualisation leverages existing capacities

by delivering a fast and flexible supply of the required

storage capacities. For a long time, individual applica-

tions were allocated with fixed storage resources in a

storage pool.

This created a typical over-provisioning scenario as

many of the applications did not utilise the storage

resources allocated to them. This is now over – thanks

to thin-provisioning which provides a method for op-

timising utilisation of available storage capacities.

This results in an efficient allocation of data to im-

prove fast access and performance.

Virtual storage machines

Virtual storage software

Virtual storage identity

Host I/O and copy management

Virtual hardware

Virtual storage identity

Host I/O and copy management

Virtual Hardware

Processors, cache, front-end ports, storage media

Processors, cache, front-end ports, storage media

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Storage virtualisation

Centrally manage individual systems

Unlimited scalability

Easily expand the environment with

extra capacity or performance

Platform independence

Supports all software platforms

Software Defined Storage (SDS)– an overview

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Complete automation

Increase efficiency by reducing

manual maintenance

Cost efficiency

Reduce management work-load and

energy consumption by optimum re-use

of existing hardware components

Efficient storage

“Information Lifecycle Management” and

optimised “Backup and Restore” features

Did you know that on average…

�80% of data is inactive (once created,

this data is never or virtually never accessed)

�20% of data is active (this data is regularly

accessed and edited)

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The current generation of V5000 models (V5020,

V5030) delivers a wide range of features to enable

secure and high-performance data management.

Functions such as FlashCopy snapshots or data

tiering across several hard drive models have today

become standard as well as other extension options

such as high availability (HyperSwap), encryption

and clustering.

Higher system performance also increases data com-

pression capacity, helping to significantly reduce the

system‘s net storage requirements by up to 70%.

ttec offers storage systems from the IBM Storwize

family which deliver convenient management

features, low TCO, excellent performance and high

availability for all storage requirements.

The IBM Storwize V3700/V5010 storage system is suit-

able for use in SMB IT environments and can be inte-

grated in all FC, FCoE or IP-SAN networks.

IBM Storwize V3700 & V5010 features IBM Easy Tier

which delivers optimised performance and faster ac-

cess times by automatically outsourcing frequently

used data to enterprise solid state drives.

IBM Storwize V5000-Series

Main areas of application recommended

by ttec:

�Virtualisation platform (Hyper-V, VMware)

�Over 20 TB up to 1 PB storage capacity for SMBs

� Integration of existing storage via external

virtualisation

bit.ly/tt-storwize-en

IBM Storwize V3700/V5010


by ttec:


�Centralised storage capacity for

SMB environments

�Data backup target (Backup2Disk)


Multi-functions to cover all requirements

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IBM Spectrum Virtualize, another member of the IBM

Storwize family, is a storage virtualisation system

that delivers centralised monitoring and control of

an organisation’s entire storage resources. The result

is higher availability of enterprise applications and

optimised utilisation of resources. In complex con-

figurations, SVC supports high availability and data

mobility between data centres located at distances

up to 300 km apart. IBM Storwize V3700, V5000-Series

and V7000 Gen2 have been designed specifically to be

used in an SVC environment as the identical Storwize

GUI is deployed.

IBM Storwize V7000 Gen2 features cutting-edge

thin-provisioning and replication technologies to

achieve more efficiency and flexibility in complex

storage landscapes. A hardware-accelerated real-time

compression can reduce storage acquisition costs

up to half by using significantly less disk capacity.

These block systems can be both scaled up and out

for increased performance and capacity. IBM Easy

Tier also delivers advanced technology for automati-

cally migrating data between storage tiers based on

real-time usage analysis patterns. IBM Storwize V7000

offers maximum scaling to additional hard disks in

the Storwize environment.

IBM Storwize V7000 Gen2


by ttec:


�100 TB storage capacity for high-end SMBs

� Integration of existing storage via external

virtualisation


IBM Spectrum Virtualize


by ttec:


�Over 50 TB high availability storage capacity

�Migration of large data volumes without

downtimes

�Maximum data availability

(on average over 99.999% uptime)

�High performance requirements

� Integration of remote storage via external

virtualisation

bit.ly/tt-svc-en

TM

OUR PARTNERS

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If your company requires high performance, unin-

terruptible, real-time data migration and site repli-

cation, then the VDSA appliances from ttec

offer you the right solution. They are based on the

SANsymphony-V Storage virtualisation platform from

DataCore, a leading provider of software defined

storage.

The appliances’ slogan is:

Connect, switch on and save

The DataCore software and ttec servers are best

tailored to offer a turn-key solution and guarantee

cost-effective operation. They have been specifically

developed to master challenges such as very high

performance and availability.

VDSA appliances are available with different storage

capacities and performance levels. You can operate

VDSA appliances either as stand-alone systems or in

clusters with synchronous and asynchronous repli-

cation. In both scenarios, maximum data security is

guaranteed.

By selecting the right components, ttec can custom-

ise the solution for your individual requirements.

When integrated into an array, VDSA appliances form

a high-availability storage infrastructure – without

users requiring in-depth knowledge of storage pro-

tocols. This type of solution protects your business-

critical applications from downtimes by enabling

uninterruptible access to virtual disks.

Appliances: the turn-key solution for high availability

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ttec VDSA appliances mirror hard disk updates syn-

chronously with storage nodes in various firewalls.

You can extend, upgrade or replace nodes, hard

disk subsystems and other productive environ-

ment components without having to switch off the

systems.

Your administrators can make sure that isolated ap-

plications or operating systems have been updated

in a test environment before they are migrated to the

productive environment.

ttec VDSA Appliances


by ttec:


�Storage requirement up to 130 TB maximum

extension (65 TB in synchronous environments)

�Fast & ready-to-use storage solution

bit.ly/tt-vdsa-en

This is an important aspect that influences the

availability of your storage environment.

OUR PARTNER

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In today’s business environments, users expect data

to be available in real-time without any delay. Traditi-

onal storage technologies are not always able to deli-

ver this efficiency.

High-performance hard disks for complex applica-

tions in organisations are expensive. In contrast,

more cost-efficient drives with high storage capacity

do not deliver the speed required by many applica-

tions.

The Flash Optimized Hybrid Storage Arrays from

Nimble offer a solution to this problem. They combine

extremely fast NVRAM (Non-Volatile Random Access

Memory) on the controllers with a mixture of SSDs

and NL-SAS hard disks.

The Nimble portfolio was extended in spring 2016 to

include predictive all-flash arrays. The all-flash solu-

tion scales up to 8 PB and 1.2 million IOPS at latency

times below one millisecond.

With the help of the Timeless Storage™ concepts,

customers do not need to purchase additional soft-

ware or cost-intensive hardware upgrades.

The integrated flash storage can be purchased with a

max. 7-year warranty.

Nimble storage systems measure 99.9997% non-stop

availability. InfoSight Predictive Analytics, the online

tool developed by Nimble and a high fail-safe hard-

ware design are major factors in securing this impres-

sive availability.

At the heart of this storage solution is Nimble’s CASL

(Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout) architecture

and the integrated analysis service, InfoSight.

This function performs an extensive data analysis

and provides detailed information on the storage

utilisation of individual applications and shows how

to leverage your resources. With a flash-enabled

solution from Nimble, you can increase performance

and storage capacity independently of each other

and they can be optimally adapted to enterprise

applications such as MS-Exchange, Oracle or MS-SQL

server databases. In this scenario, rather than

adapting the application to the storage system,

the storage system is in fact optimised to suit the

application’s requirements.

Flash-enabled storage or adaptive storage

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Nimble


by ttec:

�Databases in Microsoft environment

(MS SQL, MS Exchange) or Oracle

�Desktop virtualisations (Citrix, VMware)

�Virtualisation platform (Microsoft Hyper-V,

VMware ESXi)

bit.ly/tt-nimble-en

If you need more storage capacity, you can simply

connect more hard disk subsystems. Two options are

available to increase the speed: additional CPU cores

in the storage arrays increase the entire throughput

and further SSDs improve the read-performance.

If your needs continue growing, you can connect up

to four Nimble storage arrays to create one cluster.

OUR PARTNER

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Alongside fail safety and performance, another impor-

tant aspect of central storage systems is to be able to

adapt flexibly to various custom requirements. Based

on the innovative RAID 2.0+ architecture, the Huawei

OceanStor V3 series offers endless performance and

availability features for block and file storage which

can be combined together to suit individual needs.

One special feature of the series is the option to

combine block and file storage across all OceanStor

V3 models. The series offers central platform deploy-

ment for all storage applications in all environment

sizes.

The OceanStor 5300V3/5500V3 entry-level class fea-

tures the same functions as all other OceanStor mod-

els and is suitable for use in small to medium-sized

IT environments. It can be integrated in all FC, FCoE

or IP SAN networks. Compact design enables space-

saving solutions especially in the virtualization en-

vironment. Modern data backup concepts would be

virtually inconceivable today without snapshots. For

this reason, the OceanStor V3 series provides snap-

shots for file systems as well as for block storage.

The hardware used is systematically designed for the

use in the data centre. The redundancy of all system-

related components is ensured as well as the hot-plug

replacement of faulty components.

OceanStor 5300V3/5500V3


by ttec:

�Virtualization platform (Hyper-V, VMware)

�Central file or block-based storage capacity

for SME environments

�Data backup target (backup2disk)

bit.ly/tt-huawei-en

Flexible storage for the data centre

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The 5600V3 and 5800V3 models from the Huawei

OceanStor V3 series offer the solution to complex

storage requirements. Scalability is not only guaran-

teed by the extension options offered by the individ-

ual system: it can be clustered with up to 8 control-

lers, improving both performance and storage ability.

The multi-tenant feature provided by all OceanStor

v3 models allows the distribution of administrative

tasks to individual departments. This option enables

you to respond quickly to changes in your storage re-

quirements within your department.

In environments with several satellite locations, data

security poses a major challenge. The synchronous or

asynchronous replication of block or file data is a cen-

tral element in IT concepts with regards to disaster

recovery and business continuance. You can protect

and manage up to 32 satellites from a central location

thanks to the replication capabilities of OceanStor V3.

With the deployment of hardware deduplication and

OceanStor 5600V3/5800V3


by ttec:

�Virtualization platform (Hyper-V, VMware)

�Central file storage for small to medium-sized

enterprises

�Storage capacity for medium-sized

businesses of over 100 TB

�Multi-client ability for local administrator

management

�Diverse replication options for data

protection

bit.ly/tt-huawei-en

compression, this solution helps to reduce footprint

and the total cost of ownership. For maximum fail

safe protection, HyperMirror can configure a fail-safe

cluster to fulfil the most challenging tasks.

OUR PARTNER

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The new IBM FlashSystem family A9000/R and V9000

completes the ttec IBM portfolio for applications

which expect maximum performance and availabil-

ity. It combines the advantages of software defined

storage with the speed of flash and is suitable for

deployment scenarios with a high I/O and availability

- all this as well as a latency which, when compared

to similar products, is the lowest on the market. The

IBM FlashSystem family V9000 can also be combined

and extended with all types of different storage sys-

tems. A holistic, standardized management of the en-

tire solution is supported by Storwize-GUI. Combined

with the functions of the IBM Spectrum Virtualize

family, the IBM Flash Systems offer a high-perfor-

mance and high-availability solution for all Industry

4.0 or VDI/database workloads.

IBM FlashSystem family A9000/R and V9000


by ttec:

�Platform for desktop virtualisation

(over 250 VDI desktops)

�High-speed storage for databases

(SAP, Oracle, SQL) or in-memory databases

�Tiering storage for performance optimisation

of existing storage systems

�Perfect storage for Industry 4.0 requirements

with real-time database applications

(low latency, high IOPS)

bit.ly/tt-flash-en

TM

OUR PARTNER

Performance meets Availability

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OUR PARTNER

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transtec AG, Germany

Gerhard-Kindler-Straße 8

72770 Reutlingen

Tel. +49 (0) 71 21 / 26 78 - 400

> [email protected] | www.transtec.de

transtec S.A.R.L., France

Parc d‘Innovation

Immeuble le Pythagore

1 rue Jean Sapidus

67400 Strasbourg-Illkirch

Tel. +33 (0) 3.88.55.16.00

> [email protected] | www.transtec.fr

transtec Computer Ltd., Great Britain

Unit 5, 29-30 Horse Fair

Banbury, Oxon

0X16 OBW

Tel. +44 (0) 12 95 / 81 45 00

> [email protected] | www.transtec.co.uk

ttec B.V., Netherland

Kerkenbos 1097 D

Postbus 38040

6503 AA Nijmegen

Tel. +31 (0) 24 34 34 210

> [email protected] | www.ttec.nl

transtec Computer AG, Switzerland

Ruchstuckstrasse 25

8306 Brüttisellen

Tel. +41 (0) 44 / 8 18 47 00

> [email protected] | www.transtec.ch

© transtec AG, Version 2.0

software defined storage rev. 2.0

Technology