The “client computing revolution” is upon us, and in a world where enabling a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy in your organization “isn’t optional”, IT administrators face a plethora of concerns they may have never previously considered. With consumer technology advancing at the speed of light, IT departments need to make sure they can hold down the fort while bombarded by an avalanche of new devices.
A new landscape, a new challenge
At first, the challenge was deciding if implementing BYOD was the right move for you. Now, IT administrators are increasingly concerned with the back-end demands BYOD brings to your infrastructure. How do all these extra devices affect your network, servers, and storage capabilities? Can your infrastructure handle not only growing data, but growing data from an influx of new devices?
Why traditional storage needs to evolve
According to Gartner, the rate of data growth is estimated at 60 percent annually. Gartner also suggests that 80 percent of new data generated becomes stale after 90 days and is never accessed again ( An interesting prediction from 2006, considering we now offer automated storage technologies to address that issue!). If you consider the cost of power and cooling required to store this information, relying on a traditional disk or tape storage solution can be very expensive.
What we like about Dell Compellent technology
Storage center virtualization technology is how many companies address the storage costs that stem from the high volume of data BYOD brings.
In fact, virtualization is the key to unlocking a successful BYOD program. When you centralize desktops and data center resources, it becomes much faster and easier for devices to access email, applications and other resources using the corporate LAN through WiFi or 3G network connections.
Dell Compellent Storage Center 6.0 provides the efficiency and agility SAN administrators expect from a 64-bit operating system while extending the virtualized storage capabilities of Compellent’s Storage Center features.
With virtualized storage you can:
- Do more with less: Consolidate data onto a single platform that combines file-level control with block-level functionality. Dell Compellent delivers two unified storage solutions: “Dell Compellent NAS” and the “Dell NX3000 for Compellent.”
- Make life easier: Traditional SAN solutions require you to create a LUN by carving out a specific amount of disk space from a specified set of spindles. Compellent-backed Exchange Server solutions employ Automatic Tiered Storage, so you can virtualize storage at the disk-level within the SAN and use all available spindles at a single virtual disk pool.
- Amplify server virtualization benefits: Aggregating physical disks into logical virtual volumes creates a dynamic pool of storage resources shared by Virtual Machines (VMs). Storage is presented to VMs simply as capacity, regardless of disk type, RAID level or server connectivity. Also, thin Replication increases availability for VMs by cost-effectively backing up data across multiple sites.
- Maximize your budget: Using thin provisioning to automatically allocate storage, virtual disks or ‘volumes’ are assigned capacity and only use up available space as it’s written. That way, you only pay for the storage resources you need – saving on power and cooling.
As you prepare your enterprise for a hoard of new devices clamoring to access your central resources, chances are it won’t be a magic carpet ride for admins to beef up storage on servers. But at least server virtualization technology can take some of the stress, costs, and BYOD-induced headaches out of the equation – all while making it easier to manage and get ready for future growth.
To learn more, view our infographic on The Path to Better BYOD. If you’re still feeling stressed, schedule a BYOD Therapy Session where our experts will answer any additional questions you may have. Got a question about Dell Compellent or storage considerations for BYOD? Use the comment section below!
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