SUSE Software-Defined Storage Leverages Open Source to Break Proprietary Lock-in and Reduce Customer Costs

Singapore – Oct.
2, 2017 – The power of
storage solutions has always resided in the software, and SUSE®
software-defined storage is giving customers more flexibility and choice
than traditional storage appliances provide. It allows them to meet their
growing storage needs more securely and cost effectively using
industry-standard hardware and open source-based software-defined storage
solutions. Accordingly, SUSE today introduced SUSE Enterprise Storage
5 with enhanced ease of management, improved performance and expanded features
including new disk-to-disk backup capabilities for enterprise customers.

“Every generation of
enterprise infrastructure innovation is now being built on open source,” said
Gerald Pfeifer, vice president of Products and Technology Programs at
SUSE. “SUSE is expert at both contributing to and using upstream innovation to
create enterprise-grade, secure solutions that can be combined with other
technologies to best address customer needs. This approach applied to
software-defined storage delivers highly scalable solutions that radically
reduce storage costs in terms of both capital and operations expense.”

Gartner analysts noted
in a recent Cool Vendor report, “It has become painfully evident that storage
capacity demands, and expectations for far more rapid provisioning of that
storage, have far outpaced the ability of [infrastructure and operations]
teams’ capabilities. Far-more-automated systems are required to restore a sense
of balance, that is, storage solutions that offer much greater scale, but also
much more automation.”*

The latest release of
SUSE’s intelligent software-defined storage management solution, SUSE
Enterprise Storage 5 will enable IT organizations to accelerate innovation and
reduce costs by efficiently transforming their enterprise storage
infrastructures. It is based on the Luminous release of the Ceph open source
project, and it is ideally suited for compliance, archive, backup and large
data storage. Large data applications include video surveillance, CCTV, online
presence and training, streaming media, X-rays, seismic processing, genomic
mapping, and computer-assisted design. Backup and archive applications include
Veritas NetBackup, Commvault and Micro Focus Data Protector, along with
compliance solutions such as iTernity.

SUSE Enterprise
Storage 5 is the first commercial offering to support the new BlueStore backend
within Ceph. This follows SUSE’s first-to-market support for iSCSI and CephFS
in previous versions of SUSE Enterprise Storage. Customer benefits of this
release include:

·         The ability to service environments that require higher levels of
performance through the new BlueStore native object storage backend. SUSE
Enterprise Storage 5 offers up to double the write performance of previous
releases, coupled with significant reductions in I/O latency.

·         The ability to free up capacity and reduce data footprint via
BlueStore-enabled data compression.

·         Increased disk space efficiency of a fault-tolerant solution through enablement of erasure coding for replicated block
devices and CephFS data.

·         Lowered operational cost with an expanded advanced graphical user
interface for simplified management using the next generation openATTIC open
source storage management system.

·         Simplified cluster management and orchestration through enhanced
Salt integration.

·         Production support of the Network File System (NFS) Gateway
exporting CephFS and enabling users on a client computer to access files over a
computer network.

·         Production support for the Network File System (NFS) Gateway
exporting the RADOS object gateway (RGW) and enabling legacy file applications
that need a filesystem interface to access cloud native Amazon S3 or Swift
data.

·         A technical preview of Ceph’s ability to export a file system to
CIFS/Samba for heterogeneous connectivity.

SUSE Enterprise
Storage now offers an efficient and flexible disk-to-disk backup solution that
is scalable, self managing, fault tolerant, always on and easy to upgrade. SUSE
Enterprise Storage delivers these capabilities without the costs typically
associated with high-end functionality. Inexpensive industry-standard hardware
running open source software lets customers avoid the high prices and vendor
lock-in of proprietary solutions. SUSE Enterprise Storage also beats the cost
of enterprise open source alternatives as well as commercial offerings with an
innovative licensing model that avoids per-gigabyte storage costs.

In addition, the need
for a separate deduplication device (a sophisticated device usually associated
with proprietary solutions that is designed to reduce the overall storage
volume by eliminating duplicated data) is eliminated through advanced backup
software that provides deduplication services. SUSE is certified with leaders
in enterprise backup software, including Commvault and Veritas, all of which
feature built-in deduplication.

In a recent total cost
of ownership comparison of disk backup solutions, software-defined storage in
general and SUSE specifically came out on top. According to IT Brand Pulse, “The cost
data says SUSE is the clear value leader led by best-in-class pricing model
which includes support in the software license and, unlike others where license
costs are front-loaded, the cost of a software is spread out evenly over the
five years.”

SUSE Enterprise Server
5 will be available in the fourth quarter. For more information, visit www.suse.com/storage.

*Gartner, “Cool
Vendors in Storage Technologies, 2017,” Dave Russell, Arun Chandrasekaran,
Julia Palmer, Raj Bala, Alan Dayley, Pushan Rinnen, Garth Landers, 12 May
2017.

SUSE, a pioneer in
open source software, provides reliable, software-defined infrastructure and
application delivery solutions that give enterprises greater control and
flexibility. More than 20 years of engineering excellence, exceptional service
and an unrivaled partner ecosystem power the products and support that help our
customers manage complexity, reduce cost, and confidently deliver
mission-critical services. The lasting relationships we build allow us to
adapt and deliver the smarter innovation they need to succeed – today and tomorrow.
For more information, visit www.suse.com.