Network Storage

Neterra launches a new fibre metro network in Sofia

Neterra has built and launched a new, fast and secure fibre metro network in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. It covers the entire capital, including all important business centres, central streets, and boulevards. Through it, the company offers internet for businesses, protection from DDoS attacks, other connectivity services and media streaming. Qualified engineers are responsible for maintenance and provide technical support 24/7. Neterra's new network has several major advantages compared to the networks of other operators. It is the only fibre network that reaches all the data centres in Sofia, enters them, and connects them. This includes both Neterra's data centres and those of other operators. Another benefit is that cables are run deeper underground and in protected conduits to prevent risks of outages. For the Sofia fibre metro network, the company uses the most modern and high-quality equipment - from cables to optical distribution frames (ODF) and connectors. As a result, the connection is of exceptional quality. In the capital of Bulgaria, Neterra maintains over 550 active business services and consciously invests in reliable components. Thanks to the large capacities set in advance, Neterra's metro network is expected to meet the needs of businesses in Sofia for years to come. At the same time, it is connected to the Bulgarian core fibre network of the company, which connects all major Bulgarian cities such as Varna, Veliko Tarnovo, Burgas, Plovdiv and Ruse.

Fintech companies to explore data storage locations to meet sustainability goals

FINTECH Circle, in partnership with Bulk Data Centres, has released a report that found that companies’ growing concern about their environmental impact is a major factor in determining where to store their data.  In a survey of senior executives in the fintech and financial services sector, the report - The Data Usage Barometer - explores the broad trends taking place across fintech. It showed that finance increasingly relies on data and energy intensive technologies, with artificial intelligence expected to be the technology that will be most vital to future growth, followed by machine learning. Over a third of survey respondents had seen an increase of 50-100% in data usage and storage needs in the past three years, and more than a third of the survey respondents predicted growth of at least two times in the next three years, with half of that group expecting an increase of more than five times. Susanne Chishti, CEO of FINTECH Circle, says, “From embedded finance, digital assets including cryptocurrencies, trading platforms, and global payment solutions, fintech is disrupting and reshaping our lives. Central to this growth is where companies process their large volumes of data, and our survey shows that the majority of companies have explored or plan to explore alternatives to their current data storage infrastructure.” Half of the respondents said they are concerned about their company’s environmental impact and an even higher number agree that lowering their firm's carbon footprint is an ethical concern. Warren Barrie, Director of Bulk Data Centres, says, “Fintech has taken off in recent years and the sector is revolutionising our relationship with financial services. At its core, is the focus of ‘fintech for good’, which is based on the power of the sector to improve society and to be a custodian of sustainable products and services. “Companies are not just concerned about their shareholder returns but increasingly about their ethical and sustainable impact. This includes the upstream supply chain and where they store their data. We, at Bulk Data Centres, are committed to helping fintech companies by offering long-term sustainable solutions at much lower costs to European counterparts.” Some of the additional key findings include: • Two-thirds of respondents said AI will be vital to their future growth, with ML being the second most selected at 41%. • A third of survey respondents predicted growth of at least two times in the next three years, with half of that group expecting an increase of more than five times. • Data sovereignty and compliance are the top concerns over growing data usage and storage, selected by over half of respondents. • Security is the top requirement for data storage and processing, followed by reliability, ability to scale and then cost. 

Schneider Electric research studies reveal sustainability action gap

Schneider Electric commissioned two independent research studies focused on sustainability in IT and data centre operations, and the results reveal a disconnect between intent and action, indicating most of the industry is still at the beginning stage of its sustainability journey. The two studies were conducted by analysts at 451 Research and Forrester. They collected data from nearly 3,000 global participants, including the largest colocation and cloud providers, and IT professionals across many segments and organisation sizes. The 451 Research paper revealed a perception-versus-reality dilemma, with many enterprise organisations believing their sustainability programs are more advanced than they are, as ‘the maturity evaluations of nearly half of respondents (48%) did not match a previous answer.’ The Forrester paper focused on colocation and found that 73% of organisations ranked sustainability as their second business priority, but only 33% say they have created a strategic sustainability plan. “The research clearly demonstrates that across the data centre and IT industry, there is a sustainability action gap - the intention appears to be there, but action is lacking,” says Pankaj Sharma, EVP of the Secure Power Division, Schneider Electric. “Of course, IT professionals understand and have taken steps to address sustainability. But what we lack, with some exception, are comprehensive and supported sustainability action plans and measurable targets to create the change required to address the climate crisis. These two research papers have documented a sustainability action gap and that is our collective challenge to address." Understanding the status of industry-wide sustainability initiatives Schneider Electric commissioned the two independent research studies, which were designed to help the industry better understand the maturity of sustainability initiatives. 451 Research White Paper: Sustainability at the Edge The paper researched more than 1,150 medium and large enterprises worldwide, representing more than 20 verticals and their sustainability efforts with distributed IT resources. Researchers determined that many enterprises believe they are further along in their sustainability journeys than they actually are. For this group, the main driver of sustainability is business value and firms start with measuring energy usage then expand into other sustainability metrics and tools. The greatest challenges in their sustainability journeys include optimising energy usage, followed by obtaining consistent data and metrics (for leaders/advanced firms) and lacking skilled staff (for starter organisations). The leadership paper from Forrester: Reimagine Colocation Strategy with Sustainability Front of Mind Researchers polled 1,033 global sustainability decision-makers and colocation providers worldwide, with the objective of exploring sustainability drivers in the colocation provider industry. The study also explored the major challenges for colocation players and where they are investing the most across the technology stack. The paper found organisations lack a strong comprehensive strategy for the sustainability programs, with only 33% saying their business has created a strategic sustainability plan. This indicates that the industry is still at the beginning of its sustainability journey. The paper determined that moving forward, a key piece of sustainability success will be finding the right partner to help organisations succeed. It also found that businesses that hired an outside sustainability consulting firm as part of their sustainability initiatives are 33% more likely to be high maturity.

iM Critical is a finalist for Pittsburgh Technology Council’s Tech 50 award

iM Critical has announced that it has been selected as one of the Pittsburgh Technology Council’s 2022 Tech 50 Finalists. With the recognition as a finalist for these awards, iM Critical cements its status as a key technology innovator in Southwestern Pennsylvania. iM Critical’s flagship high-performance Pittsburgh data centre has created a purpose-built response to the growing mission-critical needs of the marketplace, which is often constrained by a lack of optimal data centres and supports the exponentially increasing demands of high-performance computing (HPC) environments. Slated for availability in Q4 2022, the 10MW modular Pittsburgh campus in Wilkinsburg will deliver full-stack IT services in a six nines environment. The company’s technologies and innovative data centre build methods deliver ground-breaking HPC options that empower evolving IoT, cyber security, 5G, smart city, robotics, academic research, and AI applications. By provisioning uniquely modular, highly efficient, scalable, customisable, and sustainability-focused solutions alongside robust space power and connectivity, iM Critical is revolutionising the way data centres are consumed for the future of high-intensity workloads and business goals. “Pittsburgh is where we are planting the flag for iM Critical’s modular HPC data centres. As a company that’s innately focused on being a pillar of the communities where its facilities reside, we’re honoured to be recognised as a finalist for this award by the Pittsburgh Technology Council,” comments Michael Roark, CEO of iM Critical. “We’re thrilled to be a source of support for Pittsburgh’s HPC community, offering lower Power Usage Effectiveness ratios (PUEs) in the data centre, along with on-site renewables, a host of monitored sustainability metrics, and more to help organisations reconcile increased demand for both power and eco-consciousness.” This Pittsburgh facility, along with the company’s other data centre and enterprise-class connectivity hub in Miami, enable customers to meet the five most pressing mandates of the evolving technological world: Addressing climate change with sustainable, energy-efficient data centre operations Migrating to the edge to satisfy needs for highly available, accessible, and fast-moving decentralised platforms Accelerating IT outsourcing for greater ease and transitions to OPEX spending Transitioning to a more intelligent factory-built modular approach to create buildings that gain efficiencies and feature seamless expansions  Meeting the burgeoning need for HPC platforms capable of supporting next-gen use cases The finalists will be celebrated on 9 November 2022, at the 26th Tech 50 Awards ceremony in Pittsburgh.

Spectra Logic and iRODS Consortium partner over storage

Spectra Logic has announced a collaboration with the iRODS Consortium to create a joint solution built upon Spectra Vail software, Spectra BlackPearl S3 storage and the iRODS data management platform. The combined solution enables customers to use industry-standard cloud interfaces for on-premises disk and glacier storage with object tape, while unlocking multi-site/multi-cloud capabilities. The iRODS integration with BlackPearl S3 allows organisations to leverage the performance and cost benefits of on-premises glacier storage as disk or tape to access ‘cold’ data and automate workflows, while the integration with Vail provides access to cloud services across multiple clouds. Spectra Vail software and BlackPearl S3 storage have been tested with the iRODS S3 storage resource plugin to fully support the Amazon S3 abstraction that iRODS delivers. The new functionality is available as part of the iRODS 4.2.11 release. “Organisations that need an on-prem glacier tier will see many benefits with the interoperability between BlackPearl S3 and the iRODS data management platform,” says David Feller, Spectra Logic Vice President of Product Management and Solutions Engineering. “Organisations will be able to take full advantage of on-prem storage and the public, private and hybrid cloud by leveraging the Vail and iRODS integration.” “The combined Spectra Logic and iRODS solution will enable organisations that rely heavily on tape to archive petabytes of valuable digital data economically and efficiently in a glacier-like tier,” says Terrell Russell, Executive Director of the iRODS Consortium. “We look forward to a lasting collaboration with Spectra Logic that will help our mutual customers drive innovation and accelerate business results.”

Siemon signs new distribution partner in Ukraine

Siemon has said that it is pleased to announce that it has signed a new partner in Ukraine: DEPS is a leading value-added IT distributor that specialises in supplying integrated communication solutions to Ukrainian internet service providers and medium to large corporate end-users across different vertical markets. Siemon has selected the new partner thanks to its customer-focused approach and established relationships with installers, integrators and end users in the Eastern European market, including Ukraine, Serbia, and Moldova. DEPS was also chosen for its leading pre-sales, marketing, technical and after-sales service, as well as the speed of delivery. “DEPS is a very well-established business, supporting leading organisation in Eastern Europe in deploying data centre infrastructure as well as enterprise and industrial IT networks”, says Siemon Sales Manager, Dan Vout. “With the support of our new partner, we plan to offer our extensive range of network infrastructure products to these markets, support customers with our technical and design expertise and quickly deliver products for new projects.” As an essential part of its cooperation, Siemon will be providing comprehensive training for new certified installers and the company’s technical team via a newly developed training programme to ensure customers of consistent quality and the best performance standards. Commenting on the new partnership, Oleksandr Mylnikov, Product Manager at DEPS says: “Siemon has a proven track record of technology innovation. The company’s high-end infrastructure products perfectly complement our range and will helps us extend our offerings to new and existing customers. Currently, many large organisations are moving their data centres and need both rapid and future-proof deployment in new areas. Therefore, timely delivery of reliable products including modular IT infrastructure that is easy and fast to set up, supported by industry-leading structured cabling systems, is key to ensure the operation of essential business services and communications.” www.siemon.com www.deps.com

DataQube announces Claude Sassoulas as new CEO

DataQube has appointed Claude Sassoulas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to head up the company’s next stage of corporate growth and explore its expansion plans.  Claude has over 25 years’ experience in building and running major B2B organisations within the ICT, telecom infrastructure, managed services, and cloud sectors. Prior to joining DataQube, he spent four years as COO at InterCloud. He was also the Managing Director (Europe) at Tata Communications for 13 years, where he grew the business from the ground up to a $500m company. Under his leadership, DataQube is looking forward to building on the progress it has made so far in the edge computing space and continuing to establish its novel offering as the go-to solution for localised data processing. Over the forthcoming weeks, he will be bolstering DataQube’s commercial and technical expertise through targeted recruitment and overseeing the establishment of a global reseller and partner network.  “I’m delighted to be joining this disruptive company during such an exciting growth phase,” says Claude. “Demand for real-time data handling is growing now that 5G rollouts and the technologies they support are gaining momentum, and existing edge facilities are struggling to deliver. Our solution’s flexible architecture, HPC capabilities, green credentials, and compelling price point are set to be a real game changer in the data centre industry.” “Claude’s proven ability to scale businesses in telecoms and cloud infrastructure will be invaluable to the commercialisation and development of DataQube,” says Anne-Laure de la Roche, Head of Asset Management at RGREEN INVEST. “Global digitalisation is driving the need for sustainable data handling at the edge, and DataQube is the optimal solution.”  Unlike conventional data centre installations, DataQube pods can be fully up and running within a six-month timeframe, for 50% less Capex and with one of the lowest PUE in the industry. These performance and sustainability advantages, together with the solution’s person-free design and lightweight structure make installations possible in a diverse range of locations where traditional installations are neither practical nor feasible. Moreover, DataQube’s efficient use of space and optimised IT capacity, along with its ability to dramatically lower overall energy usage and CO2 emissions, is setting a new standard in the industry. www.dataqube.com www.rgreeninvest.com

Infinidat expands guarantee programme

Infinidat has announced an expansion of its guaranteed Service Level Agreement (SLA) programme. Infinidat is making available the industry’s first cyber storage guarantee for recovery on primary storage - the InfiniSafe Cyber Storage guarantee. This ensures that enterprises and service providers recover and restore their data at near-instantaneous speed in the wake of a cyber attack by using a guaranteed immutable snapshot dataset with a guaranteed recovery time of one minute or less. The company is also announcing a new performance guarantee across its InfiniBox platforms. The new guarantees join Infinidat’s existing 100% availability guarantee, which was announced in 2019. “At our core, Infinidat consistently delivers unmatched enterprise SLAs and a differentiated customer experience that sets us apart and exemplifies our unconventional approach,” says Phil Bullinger, CEO, Infinidat. “With the introduction of our InfiniSafe Cyber Storage guarantee, our assured SLAs now span across availability, performance and recovery operations to meet the most demanding data centre requirements, demonstrating that our customers are always at the centre of what we do as a market leader.” Cyber resilient storage is among the most important and highly demanded requirements of enterprises today to ensure exceptional cyber security and combat cyber attacks across the entire storage estate and data infrastructure. In recent research, IDC found that 87% of organisations impacted by ransomware in the past year had to pay a ransom to recover their data. Infinidat helps organisations avoid having to pay the ransom, yet still retrieve their data, uncompromised and intact, through rapid cyber recovery. The company recently extended cyber resilience to its InfiniBox and InfiniBox SSA II enterprise storage platforms with the InfiniSafe Reference Architecture, allowing Infinidat to provide its immutability snapshot guarantee and the recovery time of immutable snapshots at one minute or less. Infinidat says that the InfiniBox and InfiniBox SSA II platforms for enterprise primary storage deployments are not only the most cyber resilient and reliable storage solutions in the industry, but also the highest performing. Given the powerful and consistent performance of the InfiniBox platforms, Infinidat is adding a performance guarantee. This performance guarantee assures customers that Infinidat’s primary storage platforms will outperform their existing storage products in their production environments. Infinidat works closely with customers to identify their specific needs for performance and analyse the requirements for each specific workload. Once the workload performance requirements are profiled, Infinidat will provide service level agreements aligned with the specific performance requirements profile and analysis of those workloads. The InfiniBox SSA II is said to provide lower latency than any other comparable enterprise storage platform in the industry, delivering an unprecedented 35 microseconds of latency. This enables customers to have optimal application and workload performance, as well as substantial storage consolidation driving increased efficiency and reduced total cost. From the earliest InfiniBox installations, Infinidat has earned an unprecedented reputation for product quality and reliability from an enterprise community that has zero tolerance for downtime. Every system is designed for zero downtime over the course of its lifecycle and comes with a 100% availability guarantee. All four of the Infinidat SLA guarantees are available across all of Infinidat’s consumption models: FLX (Infinidat’s storage-as-a-service offering), Elastic Pricing, and traditional purchase.

Infinidat’s InfiniBox SSA II receives award at the Flash Memory Summit 2022

Infinidat has announced that the InfiniBox SSA II has received a Best of Show Award at the Flash Memory Summit 2022. As the next generation solid state array in the company’s broad portfolio of enterprise storage and cyber resilient solutions, the InfiniBox SSA II was recognised as the Most Innovative Hyperscaler Implementation, demonstrating that the InfiniBox SSA II meets the stringent requirements of the hyperscaler, Cloud Service Provider (CSP), Managed Service Provider (MSP), and Managed Hosting Provider (MHP) customer base. The InfiniBox SSA II stands as the industry’s fastest all-flash storage array with unprecedented low latency and unmatched cyber resilience. “Winning the Most Innovative Hyperscaler Implementation Award at the Flash Memory Summit is another validation that Infinidat has taken the all-flash storage market by storm with our continual innovation,” says Eric Herzog, CMO at Infinidat. “For the most demanding applications and workloads, the InfiniBox SSA II is a state-of-the-art storage solution built from the ground up with the highest levels of enterprise-class performance, availability, and cyber resilience at scale, providing an ideal solution for hyperscale, CSP, MSP, and MHP deployments.” “Hyperscalers, CSPs, MSPs, and MHPs set the bar very high for service level objectives as they provide Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) for a fast-growing customer base which demands cyber resiliency and continuous access to the storage resources,” says Jay Kramer, Chairman of the Awards Program and President of Network Storage Advisors. “We are proud to recognise Infinidat for its InfiniBox SSA II, showcasing InfiniOps autonomous automation coupled with InfiniVerse AI operational set-it-and-forget-it simplicity. The solution not only exceeds its customer’s SLAs but also provides a 100% availability guarantee, unmatched real-world application performance, and powerful cyber storage resilience.” Launched in April 2022, the InfiniBox SSA II continues to raise the bar in enterprise storage performance, utilising 100% solid state technology for persistent storage, which, when coupled with Neural Cache and the company’s software advancements with autonomous automation, takes groundbreaking performance to the next level. The new InfiniBox SSA II delivers lower latency than any other comparable enterprise storage platform in the industry, delivering an unprecedented 35 microseconds of latency. In addition, the SSA II delivers the same 100% availability, white glove service, and lower total cost of ownership that defines the industry acclaimed InfiniBox customer experience. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of enterprise storage and cyber resilient solutions powered by a common software architecture across the business’ InfiniBox, InfiniBox SSA II and InfiniGuard platforms, including Infinidat’s cyber storage resiliency solution - InfiniSafe. The InfiniBox SSA II is available with Infinidat’s flexible consumption options, as are all of Infinidat’s solutions, including Storage-as-a-Service with Infinidat’s FLX program, capacity on demand with Infinidat’s Elastic Pricing model, and traditional purchase.

Time for a coffee? It’s time to discuss five key topics influencing enterprise storage

By Gareth Beanland, UK and Ireland Country Manager at Infinidat As we all head back to office life, even if just for a small proportion of the working week, old customs, like strategy conversations in the kitchen or over a cup of coffee, are returning. A lot has changed in the workplace and these topical chit-chats may seem like a quaint relic of a long forgotten, pre-COVID age, but they are as important as ever, if not more so. If you are thinking about long-term IT expenditures, cost of ownership reduction and what to do about enterprise storage in the next three to five years, here are five good conversation starters to get things going. Can enterprise storage help guard against cyber-attacks? Yes, and the key issue to discuss is consistency. Due to the cyber threats of ransomware and malware, it is imperative for enterprises to implement modern data protection and cyber resilience practices and capabilities across their primary and secondary storage estates. Features to be adding include immutable snapshots, logical air gapping, fenced forensic environments and virtually instantaneous recovery. Cyber criminals are targeting data backup as well as primary storage, so the secondary storage needs to be secure and robust enough to withstand attacks too. Remember, it is not a question of if you will suffer a cyber-attack, because cyber-attacks are pretty much a given these days, but when and how often. When you are considering enterprise storage technology to guard against a cyber-attack, look for solutions with purpose-built backup appliances for your secondary storage environments, to nullify ransomware and malware with automated functions. This will ensure business continuity and protect some of your company’s biggest strategic assets - data. It means that when a hacker declares they have taken your data ransom, you can go back to the immutable snapshots and simply ignore the cyber-criminal. There will be no need to pay any ‘ransom’, as you have a good copy of the data to recover. Can you detect when data storage is overly complex? Yes, and the key issue to discuss is storage consolidation. When enterprise storage becomes overly complex, your data ends up in silos and becomes costly to utilise and manage. This is a common nightmare and one that storage administrators too often tolerate. By consolidating your storage arrays, you not only reduce the number you have to manage, but also reduce the number of independent silos that require management, dramatically simplifying the entire data process. Can you tell if a storage solution provider can scale adequately? Yes, look at the company they keep. One of the easiest and best ways to vet the capabilities of an enterprise storage solution provider is to see if they count any Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) as customers. It shows robustness and technical resilience if CSPs and MSPs trust a storage vendor to this degree. If CSPs and MSPs are relying on the vendor’s storage platform for their own clients, then CIOs and IT decision-makers can be confident that their storage capabilities are top-notch and proven. It will mean that 90,000 back-ups per day are being run using that storage technology instead of only 30,000. As an additional check, look for storage providers who list CSPs, MSPs, and clients in highly regulated markets like banking, healthcare, and insurance. They will inevitably be giving their storage suppliers stringent SLA requirements and you can be confident they will meet them. How can we shift from managing infrastructure to focus on applications? There has been a shift within enterprise IT to focus on managing applications rather than managing the infrastructure. Many CIOs now talk about adopting a ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ approach, which seems to be the preferred mode to reinforce this focus on applications. They want their storage systems to be automated and autonomous. To be able to benefit from the same level of comfort and avoid painful and extensive ‘performance tuning’, seek storage vendors offering intelligent, Neural Cache functionalities. This means the system can employ a form of machine learning, it will enable automated adjustments to ongoing changes in the application infrastructure and reflects a set-it-and-forget-it mentality. To go a stage further, look out for support for Red Hat’s Ansible Framework, which allows storage admins to let the DevOps and operations teams allocate and configure storage within the parameters they have established in Ansible, allowing those teams to work with enterprise storage platforms without causing any problems. Can we reduce CAPEX and OPEX by consolidating our storage? Yes. This is one of today’s biggest trends in enterprise storage, because companies are always looking to reduce expenditures and storage can be one of the most expensive pieces of their data centre infrastructure budgets.  This is particularly exacerbated in an era where data and storage growth is exponential. When a data centre uses vast sets of arrays, it means there is a need for more rack space, larger data centres, more power consumption, more cooling, and more daily operational management. This is all highly resource and cost intensive. By consolidating storage, both CAPEX and OPEX can be dramatically reduced. A set-it-and-forget-it ease of use approach to your storage environment also lowers operational manpower. There is no need for either RAID groups or LUNs and no requirement to ‘play’ with the storage to optimise application performance needs or to perform any other configuration. Technology has liberated us to remote working. As the COVID pandemic has proven, it does work, but there’s nothing like the spontaneous interactions that take place in an office environment for sparking new ideas, especially when it comes to enterprise IT strategy. Informal conversations over a cup of coffee are hugely valuable for sounding out advice and new ideas or discussing collaboration opportunities. Ultimately, it leads to better decision-making and increased efficiency and effectiveness.