Simplivity would like you to rip out your established data center infrastructure and replace it with one of its data centers in a box. Or, failing that, simply use one of its OmniCubes to start fresh. Simplivity, backed by Diligent founder Doron Kempel, has designed a self-contained unit that the company claims can be used by organizations ranging from SMBs to enterprises. The company promises a simplified experience (hence the name) that can be managed via “a single pane of glass,” i.e., the ability to run multiple applications and environments through a relatively streamlined interface. Simplivity’s people argue that the various components of the data center—including the computing, networking, and storage components—were never specifically optimized to work with one another. Replacing components or elements merely compounds those inherent inefficiencies. “In the 90s, the Open-Systems revolution gave rise to new market dynamics, whereby numerous vendors offer different, open, layers of the IT infrastructure stack: server, storage and networking,” Kempel wrote in an Aug. 17 blog posting. “VMware’s debut early in the new century marked yet another step in the direction of openness and flexibility. However, in conjunction with a myriad of appliances that emerged during the past decade, the IT infrastructure has become too disintegrated.” In order to deliver the necessary functionality, typical enterprises might need to integrate as many as 10 different products into their IT infrastructure stack, he continued: not just servers and storage but also WAN optimization appliances, SSD arrays, data protection appliances and much more. As TechWorld noted, Nutanix developed and launched a virtualized server last year; meanwhile, Scale Computing could use VMworld next week to announce its HC3 data center in a box. Not to be outdone, larger OEMs have either formed partnerships or offered bundled solutions that aim to consolidate the data center into a more cohesive whole. And here you have Simplivity, arguing that it can do the same thing better. The OmniCube CN-3000 includes a pair of 6-core, 2.5-GHz Intel Xeon E5-2640 CPUs, 48 to 768 GB of RAM paired with a hybrid storage architecture that adds four 200-GB SSDs and eight 3-TB hard drives. The effective capacity is between 20 and 40 terabytes. That infrastructure pumps data back and forth between two 10GbE and two Gigabit Ethernet network connections. The company suggests other configurations are forthcoming. Two or more OmniCube systems deployed in a network result in an OmniCube Global Federation, a massively scalable pool of shared resources that provides intelligent data movement within and across data centers, globally and to the cloud. When data enters the OmniCube, it is automatically de-duplicated and compressed. Storage and compute resources are made available to other OmniCubes within the federation. All storage related policies, actions, and monitoring are accomplished on a per VM basis; data can be backed up locally, remotely, and even to the cloud. To restore or clone from a backup, an admin simply clicks on the backup and selects the data center. SimpliVity is launching exclusively with VMware vCenter, but Kempel said the plan is to add Microsoft's Hyper-V after that, Kempel told eChannelLine. Potential clients can try out an OmniCube on Amazon's EC2 cloud resource. Image: asharkyu/Shutterstock.com Simplivity Announces Data Center in a Box
Simplivity would like you to rip out your established data center infrastructure and replace it with one of its data centers in a box. Or, failing that, simply use one of its OmniCubes to start fresh. Simplivity, backed by Diligent founder Doron Kempel, has designed a self-contained unit that the company claims can be used by organizations ranging from SMBs to enterprises. The company promises a simplified experience (hence the name) that can be managed via “a single pane of glass,” i.e., the ability to run multiple applications and environments through a relatively streamlined interface. Simplivity’s people argue that the various components of the data center—including the computing, networking, and storage components—were never specifically optimized to work with one another. Replacing components or elements merely compounds those inherent inefficiencies. “In the 90s, the Open-Systems revolution gave rise to new market dynamics, whereby numerous vendors offer different, open, layers of the IT infrastructure stack: server, storage and networking,” Kempel wrote in an Aug. 17 blog posting. “VMware’s debut early in the new century marked yet another step in the direction of openness and flexibility. However, in conjunction with a myriad of appliances that emerged during the past decade, the IT infrastructure has become too disintegrated.” In order to deliver the necessary functionality, typical enterprises might need to integrate as many as 10 different products into their IT infrastructure stack, he continued: not just servers and storage but also WAN optimization appliances, SSD arrays, data protection appliances and much more. As TechWorld noted, Nutanix developed and launched a virtualized server last year; meanwhile, Scale Computing could use VMworld next week to announce its HC3 data center in a box. Not to be outdone, larger OEMs have either formed partnerships or offered bundled solutions that aim to consolidate the data center into a more cohesive whole. And here you have Simplivity, arguing that it can do the same thing better. The OmniCube CN-3000 includes a pair of 6-core, 2.5-GHz Intel Xeon E5-2640 CPUs, 48 to 768 GB of RAM paired with a hybrid storage architecture that adds four 200-GB SSDs and eight 3-TB hard drives. The effective capacity is between 20 and 40 terabytes. That infrastructure pumps data back and forth between two 10GbE and two Gigabit Ethernet network connections. The company suggests other configurations are forthcoming. Two or more OmniCube systems deployed in a network result in an OmniCube Global Federation, a massively scalable pool of shared resources that provides intelligent data movement within and across data centers, globally and to the cloud. When data enters the OmniCube, it is automatically de-duplicated and compressed. Storage and compute resources are made available to other OmniCubes within the federation. All storage related policies, actions, and monitoring are accomplished on a per VM basis; data can be backed up locally, remotely, and even to the cloud. To restore or clone from a backup, an admin simply clicks on the backup and selects the data center. SimpliVity is launching exclusively with VMware vCenter, but Kempel said the plan is to add Microsoft's Hyper-V after that, Kempel told eChannelLine. Potential clients can try out an OmniCube on Amazon's EC2 cloud resource. Image: asharkyu/Shutterstock.com