Cloud as a Tier with Microsoft StorSimple

Some weeks ago an awesome packet arrived at our office in Bern and I finally have time to write about the content.

Several months ago Microsoft acquired a company called StorSimple but there was no real buzz around this. But for me this is a huge step and shows in which direction the whole Cloud and Datacenter future will go.

StorSimple is one of the vendors which produced Cloud integrated Storage (CiS). Basically StorSimple is a hardware storage appliance with multiple storage tiers such as SSD or SAS disks and now also the Cloud which means Windows Azure.

As mentioned the box contains SSD and SAS disk which can be attached via iSCSI to your environment. ISCSI is not really the prefer option for me but I expect Microsoft to implement SMB 3.0 in the StorSimple box.

Primary Storage with SSD speed – The StorSimple box can be used as a primary storage with SSD speed. The box is certified for Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 and VMware but at the moment the StorSimple is maybe not made for running virtual machines on it. I would say it’s a great solution to attach the storage to you SMB file server and use it to expand your storage to the cloud.

Automatic Archiving – Cold data can be moved to cheap storage in Windows Azure which can grow with your needs, while hot data is running on-premise on your SSD or SAS storage.

Backup & Restore – Files can be backed up and restored from the Cloud. Incremental, deduplicated snapshots reduce storage requirements by over 90%
while delivering instant snapshot and restore technology in minutes as opposed
to days. Cloud Snapshots offer offsite data protection via the cloud. It is now
simple and cost-effective to retain as many snapshots as you need – no more 30,
60 or 90 day limits.

Multi Location Disaster Recovery – If a disaster strikes and you lose your datacenter you can restore you StorSimple box to a new StorSimple box, on the same location or on another, directly from the Windows Azure Cloud.

Military-grade Security – All data stored in the cloud with StorSimple has military-grade encryption applied to it. The encryption key is never given to StorSimple or the cloud provider, ensuring complete data privacy to support compliance requirements as stringent as HIPAA.

Enterprise-class Storage
StorSimple solutions offer enterprise-class high-availability with fully redundant disk controllers, power supplies, network connections and no single point of failure. They also support non-disruptive software upgrades.

Application-optimized Storage and Data Protection – Application-optimized volumes for Windows file shares, SharePoint and VMware libraries. Full support for VSS application-consistent snapshots is provided.

If you want to know more about StorSimple check out the StorSimple website.