DataON Kepler three-node (K3N) switchless hyper-converged solutions for Azure Stack HCI are ideal for small/medium-sized businesses (SMB), remote office/branch office (ROBO), edge, and IoT deployments, DataON Kepler switchless solutions simplify storage networking environments and reduce cost with direct-attached connectivity, eliminating the need for storage network switches, and can be optimized for high performance with all-NVMe storage or balanced capacity and storage with flexible hybrid NVMe cache and SSD/HDD storage. Customers find these hyper-converged infrastructures essential in cost-sensitive environments or ROBO and edge deployments.
DataON Kepler switchless solutions for Azure Stack HCI provide data resiliency by spreading copies of the volumes quickly across multiple nodes whether performing reads or writes, repairs or optimizing data and easily connect directly from node to node via one or two dual-port 25/40/100 GbE RDMA adapters on each node. Without the complexity of switch networking, this full mesh interconnect means less management and risk that switch failures or reboots might cause an interruption to the interconnect network traffic with relatively little difference in performance Previously, switchless solutions were limited to two-node server configurations Constrained to two-way mirroring fault tolerance in two-node switchless solutions, many companies had to weigh cost versus additional resiliency. For example, if both nodes were to fail or one went down with a drive-failure in the second, this might result in data loss or significant downtime—especially if used in production environments or remote locations without on-site administrators or Azure cloud and/or off-premises backup/disaster recovery systems. Aware of the dilemma many of its customers face, DataON has worked extensively with Microsoft to develop Kepler three-node switchless solutions.
DataON K3N switchless solutions delver an additional layer of resiliency with three-way mirroring previously only found on standard DataON HCI solutions. In the event of a two-node failure or one-node failure and second-node drive-failure, a DataON K3N switchless solution configured with three-way mirroring will stay up and running and not incur data loss. For many IT administrators, this kind of resiliency is an absolute must. A key strategic advantage to DataON Kepler solutions is scalability and ease of deployment. Organizations that purchase a DataON Kepler switchless solution can easily add an additional node when planning to scale-out. An administrator can create new three-way mirror volumes and safely migrate the data from the older two-way mirror-configured volumes in a simple and quick process.
In VM Fleet testing performed in DataON labs, DataON K3N-108 solutions (three-way mirror configuration) performed comparably to those configured with a switch. DataON Kepler switchless solutions also eliminate both the cost of a switch and an additional potential point of failure, making it a more reliable and affordable solution for organizations that only require two or three-node deployments.
For SMB, ROBO, edge and IoT deployments, DataON Kepler switchless solutions offer substantial savings, greater ease of deployment and better reliability for organizations with smaller data centers or those that have numerous national or worldwide locations that require localized on-premises solutions like financial institutions (bank branches), retail, power and utilities, healthcare, logistics companies and manufacturers. DataON Kepler switchless solutions are validated for Azure Stack HCI, which blends Windows Server technologies with new Azure management service integration for hybrid cloud innovation. It helps customer replace aging servers and storage without lengthy design and build times and features the same Hyper-V based software-defined compute, storage, and networking as Azure Stack. Built-in integration with Azure makes it easy for IT staff to start using Azure for cloud management and security services, including offsite backup, site recovery, file synchronization, and cloud-based monitoring. This can help organizations save on disaster and recovery solutions and provide another layer of resiliency for SMB, ROBO and edge deployments
DataON Kepler switchless solutions include DataON MUST, a management utility software tool that provides a high level of infrastructure visibility, monitoring, and management for Windows Server-based hyper-converged systems, networking and storage. It can be used standalone or as a native extension for Windows Admin Center to provide end-to-end HCI monitoring and management capabilities from a single pane of glass. It adds to the Windows Admin Center experience by adding capabilities such as historic data reporting, disk mapping, system alerts, and call home services.
DataON Kepler K3N switchless solutions deliver:
- Support for three-way mirroring for better fault tolerance, nested resiliency and simplified deployments
- Affordability and cost savings for meeting tight budgets, especially with multiple ROBO deployments that previously required the purchase of switches for each location
- Small physical footprint for deployments where there is limited space to house data center equipment or if the data center needs to be portable for temporary deployments
- The ability to monitor and send real-time alerts to a system admin via DataON MUST within Windows Admin Center
- Seamless hybrid cloud integration with Azure cloud services for offsite backup, site recovery, file synchronization, and cloud-based monitoring
- Industry-standard hardware for simplified driver stacks and immediate access to new technologies without the costly OEM taxes for upgrades and replacement parts
- All-flash and hybrid Intel® Select Solutions powered by 2nd generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors with native support for Intel® Optane™ SSDs, and 20/40/100GbE RDMA SMB3 networking
- Outstanding scalability up to sixteen nodes with up to 4PB per cluster
Interested in DataON Kepler switchless solution for Azure Stack HCI? Contact us and let us work with you to develop a Microsoft infrastructure strategy tailor-made for your organization.
Download the DataON K3N Solution Brief