SolidFire Agile Infrastructure for OpenStack

SolidFire, Inc., in all-flash storage systems announced its first Agile Infrastructure (AI) reference architecture for OpenStack.

SolidFire AI is a pre-validated, converged infrastructure design which enables start-to-finish deployment of an OpenStack cloud infrastructure in less than one hour, through the combination of compute, networking, orchestration and all-flash storage technologies.

“The wave of cloud computing continues to gain strength as enterprises strive to deliver a broad set of IT services with greater speed and agility than ever before,” said SolidFire’s founder and CEO Dave Wright. “A key part of SolidFire’s value is our ability to make the complexities of cloud deployment, management and predictability – simple. Agile Infrastructure for OpenStack provides enterprises with a proven roadmap for deployment that takes advantage of the scalability, automation and guaranteed performance control native to SolidFire’s all-flash array. With AI, customers can stand up a dynamic self-service cloud infrastructure in less time, with less space and for less money than alternative converged infrastructure offerings.”

SolidFire demonstrated its complete AI for OpenStack on May 14, 2014 at OpenStack Summit in Atlanta, GA.

“We see a steady rise in OpenStack adoption from organizations looking to build private clouds. These companies are eager for faster ways to get up and running and accelerate their movement from PoC to actual production use,” commented Michael Cote, research director of infrastructure software, 451 Research. “Reference architectures, like SolidFire’s AI, have historically been an effective OpenStack accelerator, and the company is going in with good partners.”

The first in series of AI solutions, SolidFire’s validated reference design
for OpenStack Cloud Infrastructure combines:

• SolidFire’s all-flash scale-out block storage system
• Dell PowerEdge R620 rack servers and Dell networking Force 10 S55 and S4810 switches
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform

The results of testing by SolidFire’s solutions engineering team show AI for OpenStack can be deployed from bare metal to a functional cloud infrastructure within less than one hour, with additional compute nodes and instances added in 15mn. Fully implemented, AI for OpenStack is a reference design that combines raw flash performance with the control of guaranteed QoS.

“Dell continues to strengthen its long-standing commitment to the OpenStack ecosystem by enabling partner solutions like SolidFire AI with best-in-class Dell Networking and Dell PowerEdge servers, in addition to Dell’s own OpenStack solutions,” said Steve Stover, executive director, engineered solutions, Dell. “Enterprises can improve the efficiency, agility and resiliency of their open source cloud environments with OpenStack solutions from Dell, SolidFire and Red Hat.“

“SolidFire’s Agile Infrastructure can simplify and accelerate deployment of cloud computing and IT service delivery – heightening responsiveness, reducing time to market, and giving businesses the edge they need to stay competitive in today’s complex marketplace,” said Mike Werner, senior director, ISV and developer ecosystems, Red Hat. “Red Hat is thrilled to be collaborating with SolidFire and Dell to bring the power of OpenStack to even more enterprise customers.”

On June 4, 2014, SolidFire will kick-off a seven-city roadshow Accelerating the Enterprise Journey to the Next Generation Data Center in London, UK. The goal of this OpenStack & Enterprise Roadshow is to help enterprises understand how to leverage OpenStack and AI to increase business agility, efficiency, automation and scale.