Software Defined Storage Rev. 2.0 - en

Software 

Defined Storage 

Maximise availability, increase performance and reduce costs 

HIGH AVAILABILITY & 

DATA SECURITY 

INTELLIGENT & FLEXIBLE 

STORAGE SOLUTIONS 

EASY 

MANAGEMENT 

1

Data is the lifeblood 

of any company 

The IT landscapes of many SMBs and large organisations 

often feature heterogeneous storage infrastructures 

with distributed storage systems, remote management 

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. 

If data becomes unavailable, production stops, delivery 

deadlines cannot be met and an organisation suffers 

a drop in sales. 

A vast range of systems and technologies are available 

on the market. This is why it makes sense for companies 

to cooperate with an experienced IT service 

provider such as transtec to analyse which products 

and solutions are best suited for their application 

requirements. 

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 

2

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 requirement. 

Storage virtualisation, just as server virtualisation, 

leverages the existing physical resources, 

centralises and simplifies management and can increase 

availability by deploying live migration. In this 

way, your administrators can transfer virtualised 

environments from a physical server to another without 

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 applications 

were allocated with fixed storage resources in a 

storage pool. 

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. 

Virtual storage machines 

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 optimising 

utilisation of available storage capacities. 

This results in an efficient allocation of data to improve 

fast access and performance. 

Virtual storage 

identity 

Host I/O and copy 

management 

Virtual 

hardware 

Processors, cache, 

front-end ports, 

storage media 

Virtual storage 

identity 

Host I/O and copy 


Virtual 

Hardware 

Processors, cache, 

front-end ports, 

storage media 

Virtual storage software 

3

Software Defined Storage (SDS) 

– an overview 

Platform independence 

Supports all software platforms 

Unlimited scalability 

Easily expand the environment with 

extra capacity or performance 

Storage virtualisation 

Centrally manage individual systems 

4

Cost efficiency 

Reduce management work-load and 

energy consumption by optimum re-use 

of existing hardware components 

Complete automation 

Increase efficiency by reducing 

manual maintenance 

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) 

5

Multi-functions to 

cover all requirements 

transtec 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 suitable 

for use in SMB IT environments and can be integrated 

in all FC, FCoE or IP-SAN networks. 

IBM Storwize V3700 & V5010 features IBM Easy Tier 

which delivers optimised performance and faster access 

times by automatically outsourcing frequently 

used data to enterprise solid state drives. 

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 compression 

capacity, helping to significantly reduce the 

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

IBM Storwize V3700/V5010 

Main areas of application recommended 

by transtec: 

Virtualisation platform (Hyper-V, VMware) 

Centralised storage capacity for 

SMB environments 

Data backup target (Backup2Disk) 

bit.ly/tt-storwize-en 

IBM Storwize V5000-Series 


by transtec: 


Over 20 TB up to 1 PB storage capacity for SMBs 

Integration of existing storage via external 

virtualisation 


6

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 automatically 

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 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 configurations, 

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 


by transtec: 


100 TB storage capacity for high-end SMBs 

Integration of existing storage via external 



IBM Spectrum Virtualize 


by transtec: 


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 


bit.ly/tt-svc-en 

TM 

OUR 

PARTNERS 

7

Appliances: the turn-key solution 

for high availability 

If your company requires high performance, uninterruptible, 

real-time data migration and site replication, 

then the VDSA appliances from transtec 

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 transtec 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 replication. 

In both scenarios, maximum data security is 

guaranteed. 

By selecting the right components, transtec can customise 

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 protocols. 

This type of solution protects your businesscritical 

applications from downtimes by enabling 

uninterruptible access to virtual disks. 

8

transtec VDSA appliances mirror hard disk updates 

synchronously with storage nodes in various firewalls. 

You can extend, upgrade or replace nodes, 

hard disk subsystems and other productive environment 

components without having to switch off the 

systems. 

Your administrators can make sure that isolated applications 

or operating systems have been updated 

in a test environment before they are migrated to the 

productive environment. 

This is an important aspect that influences the 

availability of your storage environment. 

transtec VDSA Appliances 


by transtec: 


Storage requirement up to 130 TB maximum 

extension (65 TB in synchronous environments) 

Fast & ready-to-use storage solution 

bit.ly/tt-vdsa-en 

OUR 

PARTNER 

9

Flash-enabled storage or 

adaptive storage 

In today’s business environments, users expect data 

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

storage technologies are not always able to deliver 

this efficiency. 

High-performance hard disks for complex applications 

in organisations are expensive. In contrast, 

more cost-efficient drives with high storage capacity 

do not deliver the speed required by many applications. 

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 solution 

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 software 

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 hardware 

design are major factors in securing this impressive 

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. 

10

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. 

Nimble 


by transtec: 

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 

OUR 

PARTNER 

11

Flexible storage for 

the data centre 

Alongside fail safety and performance, another important 

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 deployment 

for all storage applications in all environment 

sizes. 

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

the same functions as all other OceanStor models 

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 spacesaving 

solutions especially in the virtualization environment. 

Modern data backup concepts would be 

virtually inconceivable today without snapshots. For 

this reason, the OceanStor V3 series provides snapshots 

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 systemrelated 

components is ensured as well as the hot-plug 

replacement of faulty components. 

OceanStor 5300V3/5500V3 


by transtec: 

Virtualization platform (Hyper-V, VMware) 

Central file or block-based storage capacity 

for SME environments 

Data backup target (backup2disk) 

bit.ly/tt-huawei-en 

12

The 5600V3 and 5800V3 models from the Huawei 

OceanStor V3 series offer the solution to complex 

storage requirements. Scalability is not only guaranteed 

by the extension options offered by the individual 

system: it can be clustered with up to 8 controllers, 

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 requirements 

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 central 

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 

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. 

OceanStor 5600V3/5800V3 


by transtec: 

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 


Diverse replication options for data 

protection 

bit.ly/tt-huawei-en 

OUR 

PARTNER 

13

Performance meets 

Availability 

The new IBM FlashSystem family A9000/R and V9000 

completes the transtec IBM portfolio for applications 

which expect maximum performance and availability. 

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 systems. 

A holistic, standardized management of the entire 

solution is supported by Storwize-GUI. Combined 

with the functions of the IBM Spectrum Virtualize 

family, the IBM Flash Systems offer a high-performance 

and high-availability solution for all Industry 

4.0 or VDI/database workloads. 

IBM FlashSystem family A9000/R and V9000 


by transtec: 

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 

14

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transtec AG, Germany 

Gerhard-Kindler-Straße 8 

72770 Reutlingen 

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

> sales@transtec.de | 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 

> sales@transtec.fr | 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 

> sales@transtec.co.uk | www.transtec.co.uk 

ttec B.V., Netherland 

Kerkenbos 1097 D 

Postbus 38040 

6503 AA Nijmegen 

Tel. +31 (0) 24 34 34 210 

> sales@ttec.nl | www.ttec.nl 

transtec Computer AG, Switzerland 

Ruchstuckstrasse 25 

8306 Brüttisellen 

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

> sales@transtec.ch | www.transtec.ch 

© transtec AG, Version 2.0 

16

Software Defined Storage Rev. 2.0 - en

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