We are in a new era of IT, one fuelled by the explosion of data and technology innovation. Many organisations are on the cusp of becoming digital powerhouses in this new era, but two things stand in their way:
- Data is created, processed, and stored everywhere—from edge locations to core data centres to public clouds.
- IT organisations are expected to support an ever-increasing number of workloads, everything from traditional applications to edge analytics, all while delivering greater levels of simplicity, agility, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.
We are proud to announce Dell EMC PowerStore, a pioneering new modern infrastructure platform built from the ground up with best-in-class expertise and technology to address the challenges of the data era. One of PowerStore’s game-changing features is AppsON, an industry-first capability that allows VMware virtualised workloads to run directly on the purpose-built array, delivering ground-breaking application mobility and flexibility. Let’s take a closer look at what makes AppsON special, ideal workloads, and how it can complement your existing storage and infrastructure investments.
What Is AppsON?
The unparalleled flexibility and mobility provided by AppsON is made possible because PowerStore is the only purpose-built array with VMware vSphere¹ built-in. Integration with vSphere results in simplified, streamlined management where storage resources plug directly into the virtualisation layer.
Storage administration is also made simpler, as supporting data management applications can be run directly on the array, streamlining operations and consolidating targeted external VMs. The consolidated solution provided by PowerStore with AppsON offers unique capabilities for environments where infrastructure simplicity and density are desirable or critical, including edge computing, ROBO, mobile and tactical deployments.
What Workloads are Ideal for AppsON?
AppsON is ideal for a variety of workloads, namely infrastructure and data intensive applications. Infrastructure applications include anything that an administrator needs to run their data centre, including anti-virus, data protection and monitoring software. This enables an administrator and their broader infrastructure team to simplify operations and have full control over their storage environment.
Data-intensive applications fall in two categories – those that are latency sensitive and those that require an imbalance of storage vs. compute. These include but aren’t limited to applications that require a small footprint and to process and store vast amounts of data, such as edge and analytics applications.
How Does AppsON Complement Existing Infrastructure?
AppsON further benefits IT organisations by providing new flexibility while continuing to leverage existing infrastructure investments.
It complements existing platforms, including Dell Technologies’ #1 HCI solution VxRail by providing a landing zone for storage-intensive workloads that require superior data efficiency and “always on” data reduction in the smallest of form factors.
In addition, existing investments in infrastructure and processes can be preserved as a PowerStore using AppsON can serve storage to external servers via FC and iSCSI, just like a regular SAN block array, while simultaneously running enterprise Virtual Machines with VMware vSphere internally.
PowerStore cluster management, combined with VMware vSphere including vMotion and Storage vMotion, enable seamless application mobility between PowerStore and other VMware targets. Using a single storage instance, applications can be deployed on networked servers, hyperconverged infrastructure (i.e. VxRail), or directly on the PowerStore appliance and migrated transparently between them. This unparalleled agility enables IT and application owners to quickly and seamlessly deploy and reassign workloads to the most effective environment based on current requirements and available resources.
Where Does PowerStore Fit into My Existing VMware Environment?
Dell EMC PowerStore complements and extends your existing infrastructure investments, especially your VMware environment. With AppsON, PowerStore can provide both storage capacity for applications and a VMware based environment for hosting applications locally. PowerStore has comprehensive support for VMware environments. The vRealize Orchestrator plugin for Dell EMC PowerStore helps automate storage provisioning and operations, PowerStore’s innovative single architecture provides native vVol support and Cloud Storage Services can also provide Data Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) to VMware Cloud on AWS.
Because of innovation like AppsON, Dell EMC PowerStore can revolutionise your data centre, and we’re excited for you to see that first-hand. To learn more about the Dell EMC PowerStore family, visit here.
¹Based on Dell analysis of publicly available information on current solutions from mainstream storage vendors, April 2020.
