Accusys Lead Time to Be 10 Weeks / Storage Management System Discussion, Part 2

Due to the demand of electronic product having increased dramatically and the impact of the pandemic, the raw material suppliers generally extend their lead time up to 52 weeks. This has a huge impact on our lead time as well.

Therefore, please notice that from now on our lead time will have to extend to 10 weeks. Please take 10-week lead time into your consideration and evaluate your stock in advance.

Overview

In our last newsletter, we outlined storage management and its importance, especially as it affects the operation of medium and large data centers. In this newsletter, we will further discuss storage management and how a new type of software-based architectural approach is benefiting large-scale storage operations.

The New Apporach to Storage Management

As the scale of data storage system grows dramatically, limitations of traditional data center storage management have become increasingly apparent as the scale of system management, dynamic nature of deployment, and need for better, more cost-effective data protection options increasingly influence IT choices. A major sticking point is that traditional storage architecture software and hardware are often tightly coupled, making it difficult to expand or re-configure storage resources. In the enterprise, different storage systems are often needed for different applications. Each system, in turn, relies on separate computing, network, storage resources and unique monitoring and management tools. Collectively, the use of multiple storage systems increases the complexity, management, and operating costs of the data center. At the same time, the inability to share capacity among different storage systems leads to poor resource utilization. For these reasons, a new flexible and more dynamic architecture, Software Defined Storage (SDS) was developed to enable all resources to be managed under a single, management umbrella.

SDS in a Nutshell

In contrast to traditional technique of managing by vendor-specific storage arrays, SDS separates the software and hardware layers of the storage system through virtualization. Abstracting the underlying hardware not only simplifies the representation and tracking of the hardware infrastructure, but also enables use of common, hardware-independent processes for management, provisioning and protection of stored data. The same is true for different data structures such as blocks, files, or objects, resulting in greater flexibility.

Moreover, most SDS configurations use industry-standard servers and storage rather than proprietary hardware, and orchestrate storage resources under a common set of commands and automated methods. All of these features greatly simplify and improve the management of dynamic, large-scale data storage systems.

For example, a hospital originally stored structured data such as outpatient data generated by its HIS (Hospital Information) and LIS (Laboratory Information) systems, in a low-capacity but high-performance SAN storage system. By contrast, diagnostic imaging systems such as PACS produce a large number of images records, with low-performance, but large-capacity requirements. These unstructured data are typically stored in a NAS storage system. For these different data types, the hospital must manage at least two or more storage system types that are independent of each other, complicating data transmission and shared consultations. This increases the management and complexity of the maintenance tasks.

With a Software-Defined System the hospital can simultaneously manage both hospital records and images, while also incorporating the management of legacy storage, all in one system.

As can be seen from the above examples, SDS has the following benefits for storage management:

• Unified Management. SDS provides a unified storage management interface to manage all storage from a single console, such as obtaining snapshots, compressing, creating backups, and disaster recovery.
• Unified Abstraction. SDS abstracts and pools storage resources across heterogeneous storage systems to achieve resource sharing using a single interface.
• Simplification of User Training. SDS separates the software layer of the storage system from the hardware, reducing the training needed to manage different systems.
• Simpler, Scalable Architecture. SDS readily supports a large-scale distributed architecture rather than vertical, which simplifies the addition of storage capacity and re-purposing of storage devices, which simplifies management and lowers operating and capital costs.

The Future of Stoage Management

Yet even with a unified storage management approach such as SDS, in order to cope with the uninterrupted growth of massive data today, we will need even better solutions for storage management and that address special needs in different application fields in order to control cost of ownership. Not only will data centers need more advanced storage management solutions, but they will also require more responsive approaches to data storage management services in order to handle the management of ever-growing, large-scale data storage.

Looking forward, storage management solutions are likely to play an increasingly vital role in storage system operations. As data storage grows to hyper-scale, we expect both Software-Defined Storage management and professional services to become an indispensable part of every data center operation. To enable professional service support in this emerging environment, we need a unified platform for communication, coordination, and cross-management between the server and the served, and tools to maximize availability of large-scale enterprise and cloud systems.

In response these new trends, the Loxoll and its sister companies, Accusys and FeiXiTek are working hard to develop new and better approaches to management. We look forward to delivering a series of both management and professional service solutions for your company in this Big Data era. Please look to our upcoming newsletters for reports on our development progress.