Red Hat Delivers enterprise-grade Open Software-defined Storage Solutions

Red Hat, Inc. has announced the general availability of a new release of Red Hat Storage to help enterprise customers further realize the true potential of deploying an open software-defined storage solution without compromising on enterprise grade capabilities, performance, and manageability. Also announced today is the new Red Hat Storage Test Drives on AWS to give enterprise customers a free hands-on experience with Red Hat Storage Server on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The pronounced shift in enterprise storage infrastructure has been caused by the movement to cloud, explosive growth of unstructured data and big data applications. Capacity requirements have climbed from terabytes to petabytes and enterprises need an agile and cost-effective approach to support this unprecedented data growth.

IDC has determined that Red Hat’s approach to scale-out storage can present a significant value. In a recently published IDC white paper, sponsored by Red Hat, on the Economics of Software-based Storage, IDC states Red Hat open software-defined storage servers can generate up to 52 percent in storage system savings and an additional 20 percent in operational savings.

Red Hat Storage Server 2.1 combines the reliability and enterprise-grade features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 with the latest GlusterFS community release, oVirt, the open source virtualization platform, and XFS File System to deliver the next generation of open software-defined storage. Red Hat Storage Server 2.1 is designed and rigorously tested to meet exacting performance and scale demands for enterprise storage workloads and lays the data foundation for cloud and big data applications.

Highlights of the new features of Red Hat Storage Server 2.1 include:
Comprehensive OpenStack Support
· Customers benefit from access to the full private cloud stack with Red Hat Storage Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform that is integrated, engineered, and supported by a single vendor.
· Integration with the latest OpenStack release with object storage capabilities are now accessible using the Object Storage (Swift) API layer in the OpenStack Grizzly release.
· Storage back-end for OpenStack’s Block Storage (Cinder) and Image Service (Glance).
Geo-Replication Performance for Data Protection
· Geographical replication technology enhances global data protection and availability by providing timely replication of vast amounts of unstructured data over a WAN link to a disaster recovery site to support stringent data recovery objectives. Internal Red Hat testing demonstrated a 38 times increase in performance compared to existing versions of Red Hat Storage.
· Geo-replication also enables proactive fault handling through integrated monitoring and deep insight into the health of replication operations.

Enhanced Interoperability and Security for Microsoft® Windows® Workloads
· Full Server Message Block (SMB) 2.0 protocol compatibility, integration, and support for Microsoft Active Directory™ and performance enhancements make Red Hat Storage a compelling choice for Microsoft Windows file serving, sharing, and enterprise “synch and share” capabilities. Internal Red Hat testing resulted in three times the performance with SMB 2.0 and enhanced Active Directory when compared to SMB 1.0.

New Server Management & Supportability Capabilities
· Red Hat Satellite integration to easily install, provision, and maintain Red Hat Storage Servers and provide a solution to enterprises requiring absolute control over and privacy of the maintenance and package deployments.
· Updated technology preview of Red Hat Storage Console provides greater functionality and flexibility for managing the entire Red Hat Storage cluster lifecycle.
· Red Hat Customer Portal integration with Red Hat Storage Console enables customers to access relevant support information, knowledgebase articles, technology briefs, videos, and other assets.

In addition, Red Hat offers the Storage Server Administration course to teach storage administrators and system administrators how to install, configure, and maintain a cluster of Red Hat Storage Servers with a focus on high availability with CIFS/SMB and NFS using CTDB, unified file and object storage and geo-replication. Red Hat also offers the Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Hybrid Cloud Storage which is earned by passing a rigorous, hands-on exam in these same areas.