Software-Defined Storage (SDS)
What is Software-Defined Storage (SDS)?
Software-defined storage (SDS) is an approach to data storage wherein software provisions and manages storage independent from underlying hardware.
How is software-defined storage different from NAS and SAN?
Software-defined storage (SDS) marks a departure from the traditional use of network-attached storage (NAS) and storage area networks (SANs). In contrast to the hardware-centric NAS and SAN, SDS uses storage virtualization to control storage through a software layer abstracted from physical storage devices. This approach allows storage pooling and automated storage management. The SDS software may manage policies for data deduplication, replication, thin provisioning, snapshots, and backup.
Why software-defined storage?
SDS is typically more agile and cost-effective than traditional NAS and SAN approaches to storage. This is not always the case, of course, but in general SDS enables more rapid and economical scaling of storage than is possible with storage arrays based on proprietary hardware. SDS allows for use of standard x86 based storage hardware. It is also usually easier to make quick changes to SDS configurations than it is to storage running on dedicated hardware.
HPE software-defined storage
HPE approaches SDS through a software-defined data fabric suitable for any workload. With support for VMware vCenter, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Linux KVM, HPE SDS lets you create shared storage pools on industry-standard servers so you can realize storage simplification and cost savings from deploying storage as an application. The fabric enables agility by creating a unified approach to availability, scaling, and provisioning for all workloads and form factors.