Nexenta and SanDisk's joint All Flash Software-Defined Storage solution has been deployed at GleSYS Internet Services AB (GleSYS), a next-generation cloud platform provider. The solution delivers cost effective, high performance storage architecture, empowering GleSYS and its customers to quickly scale capacity as required. Additional information is detailed in the case study. GleSYS provides flexible, scalable, hosted Internet solutions to nearly 3,500 customers around the world. Based in Sweden, the organisation specialises in offering its public cloud services to small- and medium-sized businesses on a self-serve basis. Prior to selecting the Nexenta/SanDisk joint solution, GleSYS was struggling to ensure the reliability of its storage solutions for customers, many of whom require extra performance provisioning instantly. What’s more, the company has grown 100 percent over the last three years and, with similar growth projected for the future, requires a cost-effective scalable solution to keep up with its growth.
Following the advice of Layer 8 IT-Services, a company focused on delivering smart data centre solutions based on software-defined innovations, GleSYS began to consider flash storage to solve the issues it was experiencing. The company had previously deployed NexentaStor as a traditional hybrid solution and, with a good working relationship already in place, Layer 8 suggested the company investigate the joint solution from Nexenta and SanDisk. GleSYS implemented the NexentaStor/InfiniFlash solution in its facility within weeks, intending to use the new system for primary storage and the existing architecture for secondary storage. “We needed to find a solution provider that could actually understand our use case and what we wanted to do,” said Glenn Johansson, founder and chief executive officer at GleSYS. “We weren’t interested in buying bells and whistles that we didn’t need. We had a working relationship with Layer 8 and Nexenta and they presented the solution to us and promised it would deliver what we wanted. And it does.”
“With the breakthrough economics in the combo of NexentaStor and InfiniFlash, an All Flash solution with superior performance, density and reliability with a very compelling cost per gigabyte (GB), GleSYS sets a new standard in cloud delivery,” said Johan Tungstr?m, CEO and co-founder at Layer 8 IT-Services.
GleSYS’s previous solution was only able to reach a maximum of 12k Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS). With the NexentaStor/InfiniFlash solution it runs at a constant 20k IOPS, with a latency of less than 1.5ms in its daily operations. While IOPS currently peak at around 80k, GleSYS believes this is not the limit of the solution, but rather the max utilisation that it has seen from its current load. When it comes to data centre footprint, GleSYS has a 64TB hybrid storage solution allocating 16U. The solution based on NexentaStor/InfiniFlash IF100 can hold up to 512TB in only 7U.
The new solution has also had a positive impact on GleSYS daily business operations. Where previously its team was spending between 40 and 50 hours a month on administration and dealing with its customers’ storage related challenges, this reactive problem solving has now been reduced to two to four hours per month. Furthermore, the set-up has greatly benefited GleSYS’ customers. Its low TCO means users are receiving a solution with integrated SSDs for the price of HDDs and, due to its high performance and reliability, GleSYS has not experienced any service outages since installation. The NexentaStor/InfiniFlash solution and the relationship GleSYS has built with both companies have proven to be hugely valuable to the organisation and its clients, and it anticipates GleSYS will be able to grow with this solution in place for as many as ten years.
“We’re delighted at the success of this project to date along with many other enterprise customers around the world,” said Tarkan Maner, chairman and CEO at Nexenta. “Our joint solution with SanDisk was intended to be a game-changer, offering a high performance solution at the fraction of the TCO of legacy hardware vendors. We look forward to our continuing relationship with GleSYS and hope to help the company expand to even greater heights.”
“SanDisk’s InfiniFlash system and Nexenta’s NexentaStor succeeded in providing GleSYS with a seamless, simple-to-manage, cost-efficient solution, that delivers substantial performance gains over traditional hard disk drive-based systems,” said Ravi Swaminathan, vice president and general manager, systems and software solutions, SanDisk. “By partnering with Nexenta, we are delighted to provide GleSYS with a scalable solution that ensures the reliability of its storage solutions for customers during this time of phenomenal growth.”
