How SmartStack saves you money
Part 3 – Additional Savings
We’ve demonstrated the savings Mr Scrooge can expect from adopting an optimised storage, networking and server platform using Nimble Storage and Cisco UCS. In the final part of our Scrooge series, we look at the other ways a SmartStack converged infrastructure solution can save you money.
Using SAN Boot
We recommend using SAN Boot in our SmartStack designs. With SAN boot, we don’t require local disks in the blade servers which helps reduce cost, and offers the following advantages:
- Because the Boot volume now resides on the Nimble array, the operating system benefits from the high performance a Nimble Storage array can deliver.
- The Boot volume can now be protected using Nimble features including snapshots, replication and encryption. The snapshots allow rapid recovery of the OS in case of corruption or data loss and replication protects the OS from site failure (by having a copy on a secondary Nimble array). Encryption provides added security by encrypting boot volumes with 256 bit encryption.
- Nimble Zero Copy Cloning ensures OS volumes can be cloned quickly for rapid deployment to new blades.
- Using SAN Boot preserves the stateless nature of the blades, thus making transferring of Service Profiles between blades seamless. Boot Volumes can be assigned to any blade and a blade server can boot up using multiple operating systems, simply by pointing to a different boot volume.
Easier Stack Management
Nimble Storage and Cisco UCS have easy to use graphical user interfaces to manage their devices. As part of a SmartStack solution, there are additional tools such as UCS Director to provide automation and single point of management and support for the entire stack.
There are also solutions based on PowerShell and Rest APIs to further automate, standardise and simplify administration of the SmartStack.
Validated Reference Architecture
Nimble Storage and Cisco continue to develop validated reference architectures working in conjunction with their mainstream application and operating system partners including Oracle, Microsoft and SAP.
Reference architecture solutions provide assurance to customers that these solutions have been validated by all of the application and hardware vendors and guaranteed to work. This reduces the risk of issues due to incompatibility or untested configurations. For added peace of mind, these vendors have formed the Joint Escalation Team, fronted by Nimble Storage, who act as the single point of call to own a case, ensuring you don’t get passed around from vendor to vendor, until a resolution is found.
Professional Services
NG-IT are experts at designing and deploying SmartStack based solutions, a feat which has been recognised by Nimble Storage earning us the title of SmartStack Partner of the Year consecutively for the last 2 years. Our expertise has led us to streamline the deployment process, meaning we can drastically reduce the number of Professional Services days required to install, configure and handover the systems, resulting in big cost savings to our customers.
Mr Scrooge was delighted by the SmartStack offering (who wouldn’t be) and amazed at how much money he would save over the next 3 years, simply by replacing his existing infrastructure. Even better is the prospect that he can place the order on Christmas Day and pay nothing as he chooses to spread the payment over the coming years. I would expect to see Mr Scrooge rejoicing on Christmas day, dancing through the streets with the largest turkey he can find, on his way to Tiny Tim’s house.
Don’t let IT budgets hold you back….with SmartStack ZERO they are no longer an issue. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
