Many companies are interested in hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) because it promises simplicity, flexibility, and low operating costs. Transparency Market Research estimates the global market value for HCI at $31 billion by 2025 and is potentially the biggest growth area for server vendors.
HCI is enabled by software, not hardware design, so it’s easy for anyone to enter this market. Nutanix, SimpliVity, and DataCore are some of the most popular brands in HCI.
But what many people don’t realize is that Windows Server 2016 includes Storage Spaces Direct, a software-defined feature that turns standard servers with local storage into enterprise-grade storage infrastructure.
And it’s not just a me-too product from Microsoft. It’s been battle-tested on Azure, one of the world’s largest hyper-scale clouds.
One of the issues with building a Windows Server-based HCI is finding the right mix of hardware components to maximize performance. So Microsoft is trying to simplify that with its new Windows Server Software-Defined (WSSD) program. WSSD systems are a collaboration between Microsoft and hardware vendors like DataON to provide reference architectures that optimize specific workloads. WSSD system configurations are also subjected to a full range of testing that simulates a year of data center activity.
DataON is one of the first vendors to offer WSSD systems and the only vendor to include MUST, a visibility, monitoring, and management software tool for Windows Software-Defined environments.
Read the complete article from Data Center Knowledge.