In this ever-evolving world of increasing complexity and scale, the need for an easy-to-use, intelligent storage system is clear. Organizations that use new applications and solutions require dependable storage, and often face the challenge of doing more with less. Dell EMC PowerStore addresses this challenge by packaging a powerful storage system into a cost- and space-efficient profile.
PowerStore achieves new levels of operational simplicity and agility. Built with a container-based microservices architecture, it uses advanced storage technologies and integrated machine learning (ML) to unlock the power of your data. A versatile platform with a performance-centric design, PowerStore delivers the following key benefits:
PowerStore brings the simplicity of public cloud to on-premises infrastructure, streamlining operations with an integrated ML engine and seamless automation. It offers predictive analytics to easily monitor, analyze, and troubleshoot the environment.
Further, PowerStore is highly adaptable, providing the flexibility to host specialized workloads directly on the appliance and modernize infrastructure without disruption. It also offers investment protection through flexible payment solutions and data-in-place upgrades.
The PowerStore platform is available in two different product model types: PowerStore T and PowerStore X.
PowerStore T models are unified storage arrays that can service block, file, and VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols) resources along with numerous data services and efficiencies. PowerStore T models are ideal for traditional and modern workloads, such as relational databases, electronic medical record applications, and content repositories.
PowerStore X model appliances allow for running applications directly on the appliance through the included AppsON capability. An on-board VMware ESXi hypervisor runs embedded applications alongside the PowerStore operating system, all in the form of virtual machines (VMs).
This feature is in addition to the traditional storage functionality of PowerStore X model appliances, which supports serving external block and vVol storage to servers with FC and iSCSI. Its innovative design is perfect for storage-heavy applications, providing both additional compute and high-performance storage to an existing environment or any scenario where density, performance, and availability are primary factors.
The following outlines additional features of the PowerStore T and PowerStore X models:
Figure 1. PowerStore T and PowerStore X details
Beyond the power of a single PowerStore model appliance, up to four PowerStore T appliances can be grouped into an intelligent cluster. Each appliance can scale up to 2.8PB of effective capacity, and a cluster can scale out to over 11PB of effective capacity.
Intelligent clustering allows users to add compute power, capacity, or connectivity resources independently while enabling management of multiple appliances from a single control plane. Users can migrate resources seamlessly between appliances and intelligently load balance new applications based on storage metrics.
Some of the key PowerStore value propositions are as follows:
AppsON enables agility for application deployments and allows seamless movement between the PowerStore appliances and VMware ESXi servers. Each PowerStore appliance is a 2U appliance with two active-active HA nodes, deployed as two ESXi hosts in a vSphere cluster, with shared storage, helping to reduce the server and networking footprint for space-efficient edge and remote deployments. At the same time, each appliance offers high availability for VMs running on the AppsON deployment.
Complemented by joint engineering work with VMware and Intel, AppsON uses intellectual property to bypass the hypervisor. This ability enables bare-metal NVMe performance with full support for plug-and-play functionality and PCIe fault containment.
The AppsON model also simultaneously acts as a regular external storage array, allowing users to both run VMs on the embedded hypervisor while also being able to serve storage to servers through FC/iSCSI/NVMeoF protecting existing infrastructure investments.