5 Ways to Optimize Your Storage Environment

The average data center size is 100,000 square feet. With global data production increasing dramatically yearly, data centers must rethink how they store all that data. Simply creating new locations or expanding the size of the existing facilities won’t cut it. 

Optimizing how all that data is stored can help data centers cost-effectively cater to the increasing volumes. Fortunately, storage hardware manufacturers are adopting new technologies to help enterprises improve storage performance without necessarily increasing their footprint. 

More importantly, data centers need to take a more holistic approach to storage optimization, as it’s not just about the speed they should focus on but also security. That calls for reliable infrastructure and a thorough security policy. 

In this article, we will discuss the following:

• Adopting software-defined storage.
• Creating well-defined policies.
• Improving network performance.
• And much more.

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5 Ways Data Centers Can Optimize Storage

Piling on more disks to accommodate more data isn’t the most sustainable solution. After all, data centers use one percent of power globally. 

Here are five ways to improve storage performance and increase capacity for future data handling. 

Adopt Software-Defined Storage

Much like software-defined WAN (SD-WAN), software-defined storage (SDS) is all about leveraging the power of software to get more out of the underlying hardware. SDS helps pool and abstract data at physical and logical layers. This allows for more flexibility.

Some SDS solutions integrate with the hypervisor to abstract entire storage and control it through virtualization. 

You don’t need to look outside for SDS solutions, as many hardware manufacturers also invest in storage software. Such solutions can seamlessly work with the underlying storage hardware, eliminating complexities and compatibility issues. That said, SDS's main advantage is avoiding vendor lock-in. 

Another significant advantage of SDS is that it automates many trivial yet critical storage tasks and follows policy. 

SDS is ideal for data centers that provide storage as a service, as with automation, data I/O and storage are streamlined. Some SDS types suitable for your data center infrastructure include hypervisor-based, container-based, and distributed file systems. 

Create Well-Defined Policies

Storage policies are an essential part of data management. While it’s crucial from a security perspective, a good data storage policy can also optimize infrastructure performance. Through clearly defined rules for storage, data centers can implement optimization practices across the board. 

Aligning the policy with larger business goals can help data centers base performance improvements on business requirements. Similarly, for data centers with multiple geographical locations worldwide, having a unified storage policy can ensure that all locations are on the same level in terms of storage architecture, security, and performance. 

In addition to defining a policy, create a regular schedule for reviewing the policy annually or semi-annually to incorporate best practices and resolve any issues that emerge as storage scales. 

Leverage Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe)

If you’re running a data center based on servers with solid-state drives (SSDs), you’re already tapping into the enormous benefits of all-flash storage. That’s great! But did you know you can boost input/output throughputs even further by utilizing non-volatile memory express or NVMe?

NVMe is the latest data storage and access protocol that delivers swift response times. It does so by accessing the flash storage through PCI Express or PCIe bus. This bus port can run thousands of command queues simultaneously, allowing more data to be processed. 

It takes advantage of the non-volatile memory and the computing power of today’s storage servers that feature multi-core CPUs. But what makes it even better is that this protocol is designed to move with the new memory technologies, so it should be able to support upcoming trends in storage. 

Additionally, the NVMe protocol can be the best choice for storage for compute-intensive workloads (think AI or ML) with minimal physical infrastructure. It makes moving data across applications faster and more secure. 

Take Advantage of vVOL

Virtualization has changed how data centers work, and the adoption rate has been high, with the market crossing $5 billion in 2021. Surprisingly, many of those utilizing VMware vSphere are either unaware or hesitant to use Virtual Volumes (vVOLs). 

vVOL is a container that can store an entire virtual machine (VM) and its metadata. The main advantage of using this container is granular control in managing VMs. More importantly, it’s easier to apply data storage policy across VMs. 

Another notable advantage in terms of optimization is that space allocation and reclamation are done automatically in real time. In other words, it doesn’t let any space go to waste. Also, vVOLs are provisioned thin, so storage isn’t pre-allocated. 

vVOL also helps resolve a drawback of VMware vSphere. There are limits to the number of logical unit numbers (LUNs) that can be mounted to a vSphere cluster. vVOL eliminated this problem, allowing more LUNs. 

Improve Network Performance

Storage is an integral part of the overall network, and its performance is directly linked to the network's overall health. In other words, the optimization of storage hardware can also be achieved by optimizing the entire network. 

Bottlenecks in the network can lead to issues with storage access. Similarly, the network needs to be highly available for compute-intensive applications that need to access storage arrays frequently. 

Here are some of the best practices for optimizing the network and, by extension, storage:

Update and Refresh Equipment Timely

Your network infrastructure is at the heart of its performance. If the equipment is up to date, there will be lower chances of failure. Creating a schedule for equipment updates or refresh can help ensure the network doesn’t lag behind because of technological constraints. 

PivIT can provide the latest networking equipment from major manufacturers, including the most sought-after models that may be hard to find in the market. 

Opt for Hybrid Maintenance

Consider this an extension of the last point, as network maintenance is critical for optimization. 

Having a clear maintenance strategy can help data centers avoid downtime and unavailability of storage. But maintenance can get messy when you have a multi-vendor environment with different service level agreements (SLAs).

That’s where a hybrid maintenance strategy comes in handy, where enterprises can combine maintenance agreements from different providers, including third parties. 

OneCall by PivIT facilitates this network and storage maintenance, allowing you to manage multiple maintenance contracts from manufacturers and OneCall.

Monitor Network Performance

Discovering problems in the network early on can help save time and money. That’s only possible when you regularly monitor the network’s performance and create benchmarks. 

Today, numerous network monitoring solutions audit the network and present a clear picture of its overall health. Network managers and administrators can detect real-time bottlenecks and identify improvement areas. 

Going back to the point about policy, network and storage monitoring should form a cornerstone of your storage policy. 

Consider PivIT for Your Storage Needs

Whether you need to refresh your storage infrastructure, maintain your existing equipment, or decommission legacy servers, PivIT can be your go-to. 

From procuring hard-to-find storage to extending the life of legacy equipment, PivIT’s professional services allow data centers to keep up with the unprecedented data demands of modern applications. Consider PivIT for your storage needs today!