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Nimble Storage Advances the Adaptive Flash Platform Delivering the Full Benefits of Storage Consolidation

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DQINDIA Online
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Nimble Storage,  the flash storage solutions company,  recently announced a broad range of new enterprise-grade capabilities to the Nimble Storage Adaptive Flash platform that enable enterprise IT organizations to dynamically meet varying service level agreements, reduce costs, and gain greater business agility and responsiveness.

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Advancements to the Adaptive Flash platform include the ability to deliver an all-flash service level for applications with stringent requirements around responsiveness, an auto-flash service level for mainstream applications, and a disk-only service level for applications requiring low-cost capacity, all within a single storage platform. Additional capabilities announced today include software-based encryption and a REST API-based extensibility framework. All of the new features complement existing enterprise functionality, including granular VM-level monitoring and reporting and integrated data protection.

Unlike legacy and flash-only storage architectures and systems that are deployed in disparate storage silos to support applications based on their unique characteristics and requirements, the Nimble Adaptive Flash platform offers a single storage architecture that dynamically caters to the needs of enterprise-wide workloads across performance, capacity, and data protection – delivering on the full potential and benefits of storage consolidation.

“Global enterprise IT organizations are tasked with managing hundreds, if not thousands, of business-enabling applications that require a mix of storage attributes across performance, capacity, data protection, reliability, and ease of use – all at a lower total cost of ownership,” said Scott Sinclair, storage analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “Traditional wisdom has led IT managers to select and deploy separate storage silos to cater to a particular tier of applications in the data center. These silos introduce compromises by constraining flexibility, limiting data mobility, and exacerbating storage management complexity. Introducing a dynamic, single architectural approach that can cater to the unique requirements of varying workloads represents a significant departure from dated storage industry doctrine.”

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All-Flash Service Level: Dynamic Performance and Capacity

Enterprise IT organizations now have the flexibility to dynamically deliver all-flash service levels across mission-critical applications that require deterministic latency – without the costs, capacity constraints, and silo sprawl of flash-only storage arrays. The all-flash service level meets the most stringent latency demands – its responsiveness is ideal for transaction processing, data warehouse/business intelligence, and VDI deployments.

And unlike flash-only arrays, service levels can be dynamically changed on the fly from operation in one service level to a different service level as workload demands fluctuate over time. Nimble offers a storage platform that brings IT organizations the full benefits of storage consolidation, including lower costs, higher IT productivity, seamless growth and reduced risk, all without compromising service levels of applications and workloads.

“We run many of our critical workloads on Nimble, and we’ve been thrilled with the results so far.  Now, the ability to assign an ‘all flash’ experience to certain key applications ensures the level of responsiveness that our clients require,” said Shimmy Messing, chief technology officer, Advanced Discovery Solutions.”

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“With the move to consolidate operations and create cost efficiencies, we at Phillips Securities had to reduce our storage footprint without compromising any of the robust capabilities and functions. We found that Nimble Storage through its flexible Adaptive Flash platform provided this as well as the visibility of our storage resources though Nimble Infosight which was a critical aspect of managing data storage resources for us. Nimble Storage proved to be nimble in their technology and approach,” said, Sam Wei Hoong, IT Director, Phillip Securities

Encrypt Data at The Volume or Array Level, Efficiently, at No Cost

Now with software-based encryption, Nimble SmartSecure, storage administrators have the ability to efficiently enable data encryption in consolidation and multi-tenant storage environments – at no additional cost. This new software feature enables both encryption and shredding on a per-application or per-array level. SmartSecure does not require custom drivers or dedicated firmware to implement. Once data is compressed and encrypted by the company’s CASL flash-optimized file system, it can be securely replicated to another site with the target site understanding the encryption key – dramatically streamlining administration and preserving storage capacity.

In addition to increasing security benefits for large enterprises, SmartSecure encryption enables service providers with multi-tenant environments to isolate and encrypt a particular client’s data. “Today’s heightened sensitivity around data security makes capabilities like encryption vital to our organization and our clients,” said Patrick Cimprich, vice president and Global Infrastructure Services Chief Architect at Avanade, a global business technology solutions, cloud and managed services provider.  “And the way Nimble has implemented it was great: a simple software upgrade and no additional infrastructure to buy.  It is a true testament to Nimble’s architecture that we were able to add on a feature like SmartSecure encryption as easily as we did.”

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