Cisco UCS S-Series Storage Optimized Servers

Cisco Technology, Inc. introduced the UCS S-Series: a storage-optimized server category in the Unified Computing System (UCS) portfolio, designed to address the needs of data intensive workloads such as big data, and for deploying software-defined storage, object storage, and data protection solutions.

The UCS S- Series can handle the growth of unstructured data created by the IoT, video, mobility, collaboration and analytics so that businesses can access and analyze data quickly to generate insights in real time.

Data has become the lifeblood of every organization, and the way it’s used is changing rapidly. Traditionally, data was warehoused and accessed intermittently. Industry analysts estimate that less than 40% of stored enterprise data is ever used to create insight. New applications such as video analytics, diagnostic imaging, streaming analytics, and machine learning demand and create data that is ‘un-stored’ and actively processed in real time. Traditional static IT infrastructure no longer works in a world of continuous insight and innovation, while public cloud storage solutions can become expensive as data sets grow quickly and unpredictably.

“IDC sees a dramatic shift in how new technologies are being applied to solve business problems and drive strategic growth in this, the 3rd platform era,” said Matt Eastwood, SVP, enterprise infrastructure and datacenter, IDC. “Organizations are transforming themselves digitally and as they do so they are stressing the need to bring their compute and data resources closer together. Next gen applications including big data analytics remain top IT objectives and as data becomes increasingly strategic, core storage infrastructure is being redefined in software as a server workload.“

The UCS S3260 Storage Server, the first in the UCS S-series, delivers the versatility, scalability and cloud connectivity customers need to transform their data into business intelligence and insights. With this modular architecture and the automation of UCS Manager, it lowers TCO by over 50% compared to public cloud, with the ability to right-size infrastructure to efficiently power every workload.

Compared with traditional servers, UCS S3260:

Reduces CapEx by up to 34%
Lowers ongoing management by up to 80%
Reduces cabling by up to 70%
Takes up to 60% less space
Consumes up to 59% less power

The UCS S3260 provides a wide range of capacity and performance options with up to 600 Terabytes of storage capacity per system, frictionless scaling up to petabytes with UCS Manager, cache acceleration, and unified I/O connectivity for any type of storage. With these capabilities, organizations can move from inactive data in warehouses and clouds to dynamic applications on a cloud-scale platform with high-speed processing to activate, analyze and act on data in real time.

UCS S3260 rear

“We store millions of voice records for our end users every month,” said Brian Humphreys, VP, infrastructure delivery, Xerox Corp. “The UCS S-Series provides us a more cost-effective means of offering them this service with second-tier storage. UCS management provides us with even greater efficiencies for running our operations worldwide.”

“Just as Cisco utilized its networking expertise to build a server that is tightly integrated with the network and virtualization layers, Cisco is now applying its expertise to storage,” said Eric Hester, co-founder and CTO, Green Cloud Technologies LLC. “We know UCS is reliable, we can use the same Cisco management tools we already use, and with the Cisco storage-optimized server we improved density by 25% over a white-box solution.“

“Fast storage is essential for instant recovery, which makes Cisco UCS S-Series the key to making it work,” said Dan Timko, president and CTO, Cirrity LLC. “We couldn’t have developed our vStream Vault without Cisco.“

“Enterprise storage is moving from traditional, dedicated platforms to commodity hardware; but not all commodity hardware is created equal,” said Steven Hill, senior analyst, storage, 451 Research. “Cisco’s new UCS S-Series offers substantial drive density and scalable x86 hardware options, making it easily customizable for any number of optimized SDS applications. Added to this is the S-Series’ deep integration with Cisco’s UCS management and datacenter automation platforms, not to mention Cisco’s world-wide support and service capabilities.“

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Next generation ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite
The company also announced the next generation of its ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite, a hybrid cloud software solution that offers freedom of choice for application teams and delivers a self-service portal that can be tailored for end users, application developers and IT professionals. The suite delivers hybrid cloud for automation across the organization and user base. With this solution teams can deploy to over twenty different data center, private and public cloud environments. In addition, new annual subscription licenses in one, three, and five-year options enable customers to choose the automation plan at the most cost-effective price point.

ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite has four offers,
which can be used singly or in any combination:

Infrastructure automation: Speeds time to market through consistent and faster delivery of error-free infrastructure environments to business and application teams.
Service management: Empowers customers with self-service order and service management through a simple, intuitive user interface
Cloud management: Enables faster time to market while reducing development costs by modeling application profiles once and deploying to multiple hybrid environments
Big data automation: Drives consistency with one-click installation, provisioning and deployment of Hadoop and Splunk clusters. Reduces risk with near real-time diagnostics and historical analysis.

ASAP Data Center
These additions are part of company’s evolving next generation data center architecture which enables enterprise organizations to incorporate the best aspects of cloud and on-premise data centers. The result is a complete, secure, and agile hybrid cloud platform. Organizations are increasingly under pressure to rapidly deliver new services and applications, and many are transitioning to a Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CICD) model.

At the same time, digital transformation is resulting in the creation of thousands of new enterprise applications that are becoming the primary interface between the customer and the enterprise, especially for digital transactions.

To meet these challenges, firm’s strategy is to provide a data center architecture that enables customers to analyze, simplify, automate, and protect their data and applications: the ASAP data center. Company’s architecture provides advantages through the integration of analytics, networking, compute, and security with consistent policies within the data center and across data centers and clouds.

UCS Developer Center on DevNet
To support company’s customers and partners in their automation journey with UCS Director, firm’s DevNet has revamped the UCS Developer Center to make it easier for developers to leverage the UCS Manager and UCS Director APIs for DevOps automation. Enhancements include self-paced learning labs with personalized learning tracks for Infrastructure and Application Developers.

Open Pay
Open Pay from Cisco Capital provides a flexible way to acquire UCS solutions and select converged infrastructure storage solutions to meet both demand spikes. By paying for variable capacity as it is needed, customers can better align future payments to actual usage.

Resources:
Video: Cisco UCS S-Series
Cisco Solutions for Data Intensive Workloads
Cisco UCS S3260 Storage Server data sheet
Cisco Software Defined Storage Solutions
Cisco Scale Out Object Storage Solutions
Cisco Data Protection Solutions
Cisco ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite
Webcast to learn more about UCS S-Series
Cisco Data Center and Virtualization