Marc Andreessen once said: “Software is eating the world.”
Looking back on the development of data storage over the past two decades, it is clear that while hardware updates and iterations are important, the value of software cannot be underestimated. From the first time that software-defined storage was shortlisted for Gartner's technology maturity curve in 2013, to its emergence in virtualization and cloud computing environments, software-defined storage has been widely recognized and applied.
Nowadays, software-defined storage is regarded as one of the indispensable technical pieces of the digital transformation of enterprises. It is an important starting point for revitalizing various data storage resources and releasing the value of data. The "14th Five-Year Plan" Software and Information Technology Service Industry Development Plan clearly states that "software definition" has become an important force driving future development, and encourages the development and application of software-defined storage and other technologies.
Driven by the explosive growth of data and data-driven scenarios, what is the future development direction of software-defined storage? This is the topic that the market is most concerned about nowadays. In the software-defined storage track, Tianyi Cloud insists on independent innovation and has become a force that cannot be underestimated in the market. Its storage resource activation system HBlock relies on its differentiated product features and deep adaptation to industry scenarios to explore software-defined storage. Create a new path of value.
What is the first step to unlock the value of data?
Only with full flow, sharing and reuse of data can the value be fully released. Therefore, the first step to unlock the value of data is to create an efficient, open, high-performance, safe and reliable data storage base.
At the same time, storage is one of the most complex areas in infrastructure, filled with various protocols, standards, architectures and a variety of products. Many enterprises have accumulated massive data resources during years of digital transformation, but they also commonly encounter challenges brought by traditional storage in terms of complexity, flexibility, efficiency, and cost.
For example, data is scattered in various storage devices from different manufacturers, forming multiple data islands, which seriously hinders the sharing and flow of data; the multi-vendor supply strategy makes users' data storage management extremely complicated, and the utilization rate of storage resources is not high. ; In the context of the continuous growth of data scale, challenges such as the high cost of traditional storage and difficulty in expansion are rapidly amplified, etc.
Therefore, software-defined storage, which combines the advantages of cloud, virtualization, etc., is quickly shouldering important responsibilities. The essence of software-defined storage is a kind of decoupling of software and hardware. Various data storage functions are realized through software, shielding the difference and complexity of the underlying hardware, and achieving optimal performance, resource utilization, management, cost and user experience. .
At present, China's software-defined storage market is in a stage of rapid development, and its growth rate is significantly higher than that of traditional storage. IDC predicts that China's software-defined storage market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.2% in the next five years; Gartner predicts that by 2025, Chinese enterprises will adopt iSDS (Infrastructure Software defined storage) in core data centers or public clouds. storage (iSDS for short) technology will increase from 30% to 60%.
In fact, "data-centric" has become the most important feature of modern data center construction, and future business forms and application scenarios will be driven by data. Software-defined storage itself is also constantly evolving to adapt to increasingly complex scenarios and needs. Among them, Tianyi cloud storage resource activation system HBlock has set a benchmark for the future development of software-defined storage products with its advantages such as flexible deployment, minimalist delivery, efficient operation and maintenance, security and reliability.
Setting the standard for software-defined storage
It is undeniable that software-defined storage has indeed reached a moment of change.
In the current market, there are many software-defined storage products based on open source and the architecture is old. Although there have been many partial improvements over the years, there is no substantial breakthrough in essence. Today, the infrastructure environment is becoming extremely complex, and front-end application requirements are changing dramatically. Driven by comprehensive factors such as new protocols, new media, new applications, and new scenarios, software-defined storage needs to improve product architecture, compatibility, and adaptation. Comprehensive reshaping of the user experience.
Among many software-defined storage vendors, Tianyi Cloud has been working in various scenarios such as public cloud, dedicated cloud, and hybrid cloud for many years. It was the first to realize the value of software-defined storage revolution for enterprise digital transformation. To this end, Tianyi Cloud officially launched a new software-defined storage product this year - the storage resource activation system HBlock, setting a new benchmark for the future development of software-defined storage.
With technical advantages such as distributed multi-controller architecture, full user mode, and multiple cache modes, Tianyi Cloud HBlock fully demonstrates its advantages in product competitiveness. Tianyi Cloud HBlock has many product advantages such as high availability, high reliability, high performance, low cost, high scalability, and data security.
For example, Tianyi Cloud HBlock can reach 150,000 IOPS per volume, read and write latency is 200 microseconds, and supports 1024-node elastic expansion and PB-level storage resource pool; the MPIO-based "one master, multiple backup" solution can be implemented at the data level Second-level failover improves service availability; all services in cluster mode are deployed in a redundant manner, enabling failure of the entire server, a single link, or a single disk component without being affected; Tianyi Cloud HBlock supports flexible selection of EC erasure The data redundancy method of code or copy brings high reliability to the business.
Tianyi Cloud HBlock is designed "user-centered", fully taking into account the complexity of the user's actual environment and the urgency of releasing data value. The essence of "software definition" lies in the concept of integration, which uses software to break away from the constraints of various underlying complex hardware. HBlock is widely adapted to domestic operating systems and can flexibly manage various heterogeneous servers such as x86, ARM, and Loongson. It can support docking with OpenStack and Kubernetes, and can deploy mainstream virtualization platforms such as VMware and KVM to achieve rapid and unified integration of the current complex environment and resources of enterprises.
In addition, Tianyi Cloud is deeply aware of the long-term shortcomings of traditional storage that is highly specialized and not easy to use, which is not conducive to the sharing and use of data. Therefore, Tianyi Cloud HBlock has made great efforts in product ease of use and user experience. It adopts a pure soft approach and minimalist design concept. The installation package is only about 170MB and can be installed on any mainstream Linux operating system, which greatly reduces the delivery time and The threshold for deployment is achieved, and the "three friendliness" of user-friendliness, server-friendliness and business-friendliness are achieved.
In addition to its outstanding product capabilities, Tianyi Cloud HBlock's in-depth integration with business scenarios has taken it to a higher level and can truly show its talents in the process of enterprises releasing data value.
Go deep into business scenarios and release the value of data
Today, when data elementization has become a general trend, data storage cannot just stay at the back end to meet basic data functions, but needs to be integrated into multiple application scenarios to support the full release of data value.
In the storage resource activation system HBlock, we have seen Tianyi Cloud's efforts to deeply integrate software-defined storage with business scenarios. HBlock not only supports various private cloud storage scenarios for enterprises, but also supports multiple demand scenarios such as hybrid cloud storage and secondary storage.
Taking the hybrid cloud/multi-cloud environment as an example, hybrid cloud combines the security and controllability of private cloud with the elasticity and flexibility of public cloud, and is favored by more and more enterprises. Hybrid cloud means the connection and flow of data. If data cannot achieve true flow, then hybrid cloud will be difficult to play its role, let alone support various business scenarios. To this end, Tianyi Cloud HBlock supports connection with public cloud object storage, hierarchical management of hot and cold data, and realization of hybrid cloud storage.
In the second storage scenario, HBlock can use old servers with different architectures and hardware configurations to build a distributed storage resource pool to store non-critical data such as video surveillance, backup and archiving, and interconnect with the cloud to realize storage resources. Efficient utilization and cost optimization.
It is reported that since its launch, Tianyi Cloud HBlock has been widely used in multiple scenarios in government affairs, finance, energy, medical care, industrial Internet, video surveillance and other fields, and is becoming a solid digital base for the digital transformation of thousands of industries.
Comprehensive observation, in the latest "Storage and Data Protection Technology Hype Cycle" report released by Gartner in 2023, software-defined storage has entered the "recovery period", which means that software-defined storage has truly emerged from the bubble period and is about to enter the productivity maturity period. and large-scale application stage. There is no doubt that Tianyi cloud storage resource activation system HBlock will help more users enter the "fast lane" of digital transformation with its many advantages in product architecture, user experience and scene integration.