There are a number of benefits associated with transitioning from traditional, physical storage infrastructure and switching to a virtual SAN (virtual storage network). However, one of the most notable and advantageous for organizations, at the edge and beyond, is the significant cost savings delivered by making the switch.
Traditional datacenter models require a physical NAS appliance or storage array to facilitate data storage, and can be complex, expensive, and a single point of failure. Implementing a virtual SAN reduces the amount of hardware needed to run an organization’s storage infrastructure, by virtualizing the physical components via the concept of software-defined storage.
Three reasons for switching to a virtual SAN
Virtualizing an organization’s storage infrastructure reduces costs in a number of ways. Here are the top three reasons you should consider switching to a virtual SAN, if you’re looking to save your business money.
- Less Hardware: A virtual SAN decreases the amount of physical equipment, traditionally needed to deploy data storage. Legacy datacenter configurations typically consist of a physical appliance, such as a NAS or storage array, to store data, along with the added networking switches and cabling. With a virtual SAN, all that’s required are commodity x86 servers, a hypervisor, and a software-defined storage layer, at each location. This significantly reduces IT costs, especially for organizations with multiple sites.
- Lower CAPEX and OPEX: By decreasing the amount of hardware needed at each site, you also decrease your IT infrastructure’s CAPEX and OPEX. Operating expenses are reduced because a virtual SAN is more lightweight than physical storage infrastructure and requires less power, cooling and spare parts. The capital expenditure of implementing a virtual SAN is also significantly lower, because less equipment is needed to be purchased upfront, as well as over time. A refresh of some standard servers is far less costly than specialist hardware.
- Reduced Resources: Specialist IT staff are often required to manage and maintain traditional datacenter infrastructure, which isn’t always feasible for organizations with limited budgets or multiple sites. Because virtual SANs are software-based, they don’t require much on-hands maintenance and can often be managed remotely, from a centralized location. The high availability often inherent in a virtual SAN solution also ensures that less needs to be spent on round-the-clock IT support. A physical SAN is often a single point of failure within an organization’s IT infrastructure; when it goes down, the whole system goes offline. A highly available virtual SAN keeps systems running, even in the event of a component failure. This ensures that a repair doesn’t need to be made immediately, it can be scheduled at a convenient time for everyone. A virtual SAN also requires less physical space than legacy storage systems, taking up less real estate within office / store locations.
StorMagic SvSAN is a virtual SAN solution that delivers significant cost savings by eliminating physical SANs, and converging compute and storage into a lightweight commodity server footprint.
SvSAN’s remote witness sets the solution apart from competitors, as it enables organizations to achieve genuine high availability through just two server nodes, instead of three or more with other solutions. This contributes to the solution’s cost-effectiveness, as it further reduces the amount of hardware required per site. You can learn more about our SvSAN witness on our website here.
For more information about how customers around the world are saving money by switching from a physical SAN to StorMagic SvSAN, check out our infographic: Cutting the Cost of Storage with SvSAN.
