Friday, October 2, 2015

Confessions of an EtherDrive user.


Some time ago, I was speaking with an EtherDrive storage user about how he was using the product.

Well, she said, it all started several years ago.  I'm a system integrator and I was contracted by a nearby University to come up with a storage solution for some class room lectures that had been recorded, and used periodically across the campus.  It was considered a low priority project, so the system cost was important. 
We started this first project with EtherDrive SR1521's attached to a Linux server.  It went together quickly and worked exactly as planned.  The organization was surprised at how inexpensive the system was.  EtherDrive has built its reputation by providing great value, and reliability.  As is normal in campus life, word spreads when something new is tried and the experience is good.   
Soon I had another department at the University asking if EtherDrive might work for the campus security system.  They were expanding the number of security cameras around the campus and needed something that could expand easily.  Again we used EtherDrive SR storage and a Linux server, to build a really nice way to store and retrieve recorded videos from hundreds of IP cameras. And as the storage needs grew, we just added more EtherDrive SR's to the SAN.  We didn't need to change the Linux server, it just had more storage to work with. 
Word spread and the next request came from the main IT department of the University.  They needed some low cost backup disk storage, and they were willing to give EtherDrive a try.  They were sure, it wasn't going to be fast enough or good enough for their tier 1 applications, but for a lowly backup job, they decided to give EtherDrive a try.  There were many skeptics and some real technology bigots in that organization, so the trial had lots of critical eyes watching.  The system installed so quickly and the testing ran so smoothy, many in the IT department became EtherDrive fans. 
Next was the medical science department.  They had huge storage needs for a cluster of Linux servers sharing SAN storage, for their new genome sequencing projects.  This was a high performance application that needed to scale, but still be affordable.  A 10GigE SAN was constructed and they installed more than a dozen EtherDrive SRX storage appliances.  This same architecture has been replicated and is being used by many Universities around the world.  The genome sequencing people must talk a lot about what they are doing. 
As the University started moving into server virtualizing, they went with VMware, and after initially using iSCSI, they switched to EtherDrive SRX Storage.  EtherDrive storage can be configured to satisfy all the redundancy and reliability that virtualization environments require. 
The bottom line was, that each and every application could be supported with EtherDrive storage.  Its just simple to understand when you realize EtherDrive is just a disk (or LUN) on the network.  

Since that early conversation with my system integrator friend, I have yet to hear of any application that can not be satisfied by EtherDrive storage.  Users can install SATA drives and achieve lowest cost per TeraByte, or install SAS or SSD disks and achieve maximum performance and still have the lowest cost.  

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment.
Please visit etherdrive.com to learn more about the technology discussed in my blog.