As the demands for enterprise storage continue to expand and the digital landscape shifts, so too does the need for innovative solutions that streamline operations, enhance data management, and improve overall efficiency.
The technology of choice that’s emerged as a game changer in the digital storage space is the virtual storage appliance (sometimes referred to as VSA) which has dominated the industry, and rapidly replaced legacy appliances like NAS and SAN devices.
In this blog, we’ll explore six key benefits of implementing virtual storage appliances across branch office sites and at the network edge, how they empower businesses to achieve greater levels of flexibility, scalability, and cost-efficiency while ensuring data integrity and availability, and why this technology is the future of efficient data storage and management.
1. Cost-Effective Shared Storage
Virtual storage appliances are extremely cost-effective – not only from a point of sale aspect but also from the perspective of daily operations. So it’s easy to see how these devices are able to save you money on an initial purchase, especially in comparison to a physical SAN.
But that’s not where their benefits end. Virtual storage appliances also continue to provide great value over time as they don’t depreciate in value like physical hardware.
Additionally, VSAs consume far less power and cooling resources than traditional shared storage methods and aren’t prone to expensive routine maintenance and upgrades either. Depending on their chosen vendor, supported VSA customers can effortlessly stay updated with just a few clicks.
2. Reduced Downtime
A physical SAN or NAS solution acts as a single point of failure. If the worst were to happen and the system goes down, stored data often remains unavailable until it is brought back online which, depending on the ability of the IT personnel on hand, could take hours or even days to rectify.
In contrast, virtual storage appliances are used to create virtual SAN solutions. These have the ability to mirror data over multiple server nodes, ensuring that if one node fails, the business won’t lose access to the critical data as the others remain online.
Some virtual SAN solutions can even be managed centrally, enabling IT administrators to get any downed infrastructure back online quickly.
3. High Availability
The most effective way of achieving high availability in an organization is to mirror data between multiple servers – something virtual storage appliances were built for. If a node fails, failover mechanisms are automatically activated at either the node or storage device level, and data is redirected to healthy servers.
This approach creates data redundancies within solutions using VSAs which helps to maintain uninterrupted service and data integrity, keep business-critical information available, and ensure users get the most out of their storage environments.
4. Scalable Performance and Capacity
Virtual storage appliances leverage the underlying storage capacity within the servers they are installed upon and mirror that storage capacity to other VSAs on other servers in their cluster. Consequently, storage capacity can be easily scaled up or down depending on the organization’s requirements, with drives added or removed non-disruptively.
At the same time, compute performance can be scaled out by introducing additional processing power, or even adding entire compute-only nodes to the environment. For a deeper dive into scaling performance and capacity, read our scaling white paper.
5. Shared Datastores Across Clustered Servers
Unlike traditional data storage architecture, virtual storage appliances keep datastores readily available for any servers in the cluster using software-defined storage technologies. Not only does this decouple storage from the underlying hardware for greater flexibility, it also allows multiple servers to access and utilize virtual datastores as if they were dedicated storage devices.
Virtual storage appliances interconnect clustered servers through high-speed networks using ethernet or fiber channels, which enables communication between the servers and VSA software, helping facilitate data access and storage operations.
Additionally, virtual storage appliance solutions also leverage other technologies to make data more easily accessible to its users. Load balancing for example helps prevent bottlenecks by distributing storage access requests evenly across clustered servers, and cluster coordination helps ensure multiple servers can access and update data concurrently without corruption or conflicts.
Facilitating file-level sharing, shared access protocols work to allow servers within the cluster to connect to the VSA and access the shared datastores over the network, while data redundancy and replication enhance data availability and fault tolerance, even at distributed sites.
6. No Need for Specialized IT Staff
Simple in nature, a virtual storage appliance requires no specialist training or staff – any IT professional can quickly and easily learn how to use the technology. As a result, VSAs have allowed organizations of all sizes and verticals, with edge, remote, and branch office environments to take advantage of the benefits of highly available shared storage without significant burden on IT departments and budgets.
SMBs in particular are experiencing some of the biggest benefits of leveraging virtual storage appliances, as they no longer need to find the resources to hire additional IT staff for each distributed location.
Simple, Flexible, Reliable VSAs with StorMagic SvSAN
StorMagic SvSAN offers users a set-and-forget solution that leverages virtual storage appliances to provide lightweight high availability, with minimal hardware requirements. Easy to deploy and manage, it’s an ideal hyperconverged storage solution for both organizations with large teams and budgets, and those with limited resources.
SvSAN offers flexibility and control to its customers, allowing them to use any two x86 servers (including those that have been refurbished) while ensuring there’s no single point of failure. Users are able to create any storage configuration too, delivering them a powerful data storage solution that’s easily scalable for future growth.
Boasting 100% uptime with shared storage built for minimizing disruption, StorMagic SvSAN reliably keeps all stored data secure while effortlessly protecting users against unplanned downtime and other disasters.
To learn more about StorMagic SvSAN, check out our product overview page.
You can also view our product data sheet for additional information on how SvSAN provides branch offices with affordable, highly available, software-defined storage. Or see how SvSAN virtual storage appliances fare in real-life scenarios by taking a look at these case studies. Here, you’ll gain insights into how some of our thousands of customers have reduced their overheads and kept their data and systems highly available using SvSAN:
