Exploring Software-Defined Storage for Organizations

In today’s world, government agencies are collecting data like never before. As agencies continue to be challenged to manage the volume, velocity and variety of data, agencies are looking at new ways to unlock the power of data to transform service delivery and find new business efficiencies. This has led to advances in the way in which government data is stored and managed; one of those trends is the development of software-defined storage.

Software-defined storage (SDS) is still a relatively new term, and has been hotly contested if it is just the next buzzword or indicative to a larger trend in data storage. The development of software-defined storage comes from a growing awareness that government IT legacy systems and architectures are no longer sustainable to meet growing constituent and operational needs. There is little relief on the horizon, as the amount of data stored will continue to grow, and users will continue to demand access to data that is always available and quickly able to scale services to meet demands.

With software-defined storage, agencies are attempting to develop shared pools of software for users; this will facilitate shared on-demand services and automation to facilitate storage needs. Through a software-defined storage model and stringent management policies by IT officials, resources can be utilized more efficiently and deployed more effectively across an agency.

Although software-defined storage is still being defined by the industry, the trend suggests that software-defined storage is the natural next step to decouple physical infrastructure from software components. Software-defined storage facilitates the ability to enable pooling, on-demand distribution and scalable solutions that can be mapped to virtual data centers.

More specifically, software-defined storage takes place within a software defined data center, and is deployed through the cloud. Within a software defined data center, hardware is pooled through virtualization into a single and scalable resource for organizations. Storage is then virtualized, and turned into a “software service,” allowing administrators to deploy on-demand services and software to users as necessary.

This process can be deployed for public, private or hybrid clouds – all to provide agencies with scalable solutions and support programs to improve efficiency. Ultimately what happens is that the cloud (public, private, hybrid) becomes the delivery model, providing agencies with the benefits of scalable and agile software needs to rapidly deploy software and achieve business objectives. The software-defined storage process has many advantages to government agencies, three benefits can be found below.

1. Scalable to fit business needs
2. Decrease in costs to run applications
3. High levels of automation and new efficiencies

As government continues to operate in a rapidly changing and uncertain environment, agencies must focus on scalable solutions – that can quickly change to meet citizen and business efficiency demands. This was one of the findings in our recent report, Crafting a Digital Government Strategy, agencies need to focus on how to scale services, and grow as demands grow. Software-defined storage can help agencies achieve automation and scalability, which is imperative to shape a 21^st century government.

How software-define storage impacts government is yet to be seen but is a promising advancement in the world of data storage. Software defined storage will be a core theme at EMC World Conference, which will be held May 6-9 in Las Vegas. EMC and VMware will focus on software-defined storage, software-defined availability and many other related topics. Learn more about EMC by visiting Chucks Blog.

Want More GovLoop Content? Sign Up For Email Updates

EMC Corporation, a global IT leader, enables the federal government to transform its operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, delivered in partnership with leading government contractors and federal systems integrators, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping federal IT departments to store, manage, protect, and analyze their most valuable asset—information—in a more agile, trusted, and cost-efficient way. Additional information can be found at www.EMC.com/federal.