Every day, more and more data is added to company networks. This can put a lot of stress on corporate IT systems, especially when it comes to expansion. Enter vSAN, a software-defined enterprise storage solution powering industry-leading hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) systems. This VMware solution provides a simple evolution to full-stack HCI, broad flexibility and multi-cloud capabilities. With vSAN, companies are able to run their business-critical applications with enterprise reliability, greater speed of access and expanded storage capacity, all the while protecting their data with disaster recovery
Access Data and Apps…Fast!
The IT landscape is constantly changing, and VMware’s goal is to deliver the absolute best storage platform from end-to-end, starting with increased speed of access to data and apps. vSAN enables faster delivery of services with reduced staff overhead. This lower overhead can lead to a 10x lower latency. Before implementing vSAN storage, Grünenfelder SA, a leading logistics company for food and non-food products, struggled with a slowdown in day-to-day operations of virtual desktop infrastructure and access to data. This led to a drastic performance drop in company application software which caused daily administrative and logistics work to become sluggish.
After implementing vSAN, Grünenfelder was able to achieve a noticeable reduction in response and retrieval times for data. According to Luca Bolla, IT manager at Grünenfelder, these processes which typically took hours to complete now can be done in a matter of minutes. Bolla continued by saying that Grünenfelder has “seen massive improvement in database application response times on the SQL database server which is the basis for our SAP systems.”
Scale to New Storage Heights
In addition to greater speed of access to data and apps, vSAN also provides a flexible and highly scalable HCI storage solution. A single vSAN cluster can consist of anywhere from two to 64 physical server hosts so organizations can start with what they need today and add additional compute and storage capacity as needed. Grünenfelder was able to increase their storage capacity thanks to the new hard drives and improvements enabled by vSAN, guaranteeing the company enough memory space for their current and future IT developments. This increased storage also allows backups to run much faster within an allocated time frame. “The most dramatic change for us was the transition from traditional storage to a virtualized storage network with VMware vSAN,” said Bolla. “It was a big step, which finally allowed us to optimize performance with unbelievable response times that are up to ten times faster.”
“It was a big step, which finally allowed us to optimize performance with unbelievable response times that are up to ten times faster.”
Additionally, vSAN also distributes components across drives and hosts in the cluster based on the storage policy assigned to an object. This helps ensure virtual machine data remains accessible in the event of a drive or host failure. Grünenfelder’s new infrastructure allows them to set up a secure system working from one or two server hard disks even in the case of failure. This means that employees can continue to work on a redundant operating system even during updates or maintenance work.
An IT Infrastructure That Works for You
Because of vSAN, companies like Grünenfelder have greatly improved the performance of their IT systems, increased the speed of access to their data and applications, expanded storage capacity and elevated their disaster recovery service. These improvements allow companies to be better prepared to cope with business requirements and provide their employees with the appropriate services to do their jobs effectively and efficiently. Thanks to vSAN, any organization in any industry can enjoy a comprehensive and scalable solution that keeps up with their evolving business needs.
For more on how vSAN can work in your own environment, stay tuned to the Virtual Blocks Blog.
