Gridstore Supports Windows Server 2012 R2

Gridstore, Inc. announced support for the new features being introduced by Microsoft Corp. in Windows Server 2012 R2.

Leveraging their strategic relationship, Gridstore has designed and delivers its software defined storage solution, which complements the storage functionality in Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V through their patented Server-side Virtual Controller Technology (SVCT).

Gridstore 3.0 delivers scale out block storage to deliver impressive IO/s, throughput and linear scalability up to 3PB, in 12TB increments. The innovation that Gridstore storage brings to Microsoft environments includes simplified storage management per VM through Windows Server 2012 management, pay-as-you-scale in small, affordable increments and end-to-end storage QoS for each Hyper-V VM.

“Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V advances the groundbreaking storage functionality introduced in Windows Server 2012, and we are pleased that Gridstore is providing a storage solution that builds on that functionality,” said Brad Anderson, corporate VP, Microsoft. “Gridstore 3.0 addresses architectural issues between traditional storage and virtualized servers to help maximize application performance in a Hyper-V environment at an affordable price point and with massive scalability.”

“We purpose-built our Gridstore 3.0 storage solution to be fully optimized for Hyper-V environments. With the ability to automatically optimize and accelerate application I/O in virtualized environments, we help customers take Hyper-V storage to a whole new level,” said George Symons, CEO, Gridstore. “With our solutions for both capacity and performance (hybrid flash caching) storage, we deliver true end-to-end software-defined storage solution that is simple to implement, manage and scale. Gridstore solutions fit naturally into the Windows, infrastructure appearing like local HDDs.”

Among the features supported
through this strategic partnership are:

• Cluster Support: Gridstore provides SCSI block devices that support Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) to a single Windows Sever, Hyper-V hosts, or Microsoft Scale-out File Clusters.
• Management per VM: Storage is managed from the GridControl MMC snap-in and storage services like snapshot, replication are managed through standard Microsoft tools such as Hyper-V Manager on a per VM basis.
• Storage QoS: Gridstore TrueQoS is Hyper-V aware so the I/O requests from each virtual machine are prioritized, based on the priority of the application to an organization, end to end, right down through the physical storage.
• Microsoft Hyper-V: Gridstore uses its software defined storage architecture to optimize the I/O performance of each virtual machine and then takes advantage of its H-Class Storage Nodes using flash as a cache to deliver the IOPS required for demanding Hyper-V environments or databases.
• SMB3: Gridstore complements SMB3 with block storage, and takes advantage of the advances made by Microsoft in its file storage stack and SMB3 protocol. The result helps assure an easier-to-administer, scalable and 100% compatible storage system.
• Storage Spaces: Gridstore storage is 100% compatible with Windows Server 2012 R2 Storage Spaces, minimizes cost and complexity, uses a standard Ethernet infrastructure, and scales linearly as Storage Nodes are added to the grid.