We use file storage as part of a cluster where all our different shares, like SMB shares and NFS shares, have been configured and presented to the users. Users are accessing that storage for their day-to-day use.
Based on that, we have different storage containers that are being synchronized with this file storage. On a daily basis, we take backups and snapshots of the entire environment to ensure that everything is protected.
The effectiveness of GreenLake for data-intensive workloads is that it's an intelligent platform. When the shares and the data are not in use or at rest, the kernel processors for the inline engines automatically go into idle mode, thereby reducing a lot of power consumption and overall internal resources.
The benefits of using AI tools, such as AI Ops tools, are, for example, that they reduce security risks, improve our automated routine tasks, reduce human efforts, and increase user satisfaction and experience. We use AI Ops to completely optimize our file storage environment. These are the primary benefits of using AI-powered modules or an AI platform integrated with file storage.
The ease of the console and the ease of the UI interface are very favorable to all those customers, including our operations team. We never face any challenge whenever a new resource is introduced to the team. It is very easy to guide that resource with the navigation, and the complete step-by-step process is very smooth. Everyone is able to adapt to that environment very easily.
For us, the utilization of cache when the data is traveling between media, from any location to any location or within that cluster, was seamless, and there were no issues that we observed. So, the front-end caching and the back-end caching are both integrated with the control plane. With that help, this feature [the global namespace capability] is a consolidated or integrated control plane architecture. And by using this feature the use of that cache is that the cache is very fast. And immediately, when the objects are coming into that cache and going out, the performance, the read-write performance, is tremendous, and there is no lagging or performance issues at all.
The features related to the automatic creation of storage policies and objects, the reporting features, the detailed reporting for information whenever we need to send it within the team or to other stakeholders (showing how much consumption is being used and how the shares are being used), and the alert and optimization policies that we have configured in that environment are basically very useful during our entire operational process.
The performance is excellent using this platform. We never face any issues, any sort of latency, any issues with IOPS, any issues with users complaining about anything lagging or any drops or anything. So, whatever we are expecting for an optimal file storage environment where users access and use the storage as their repository, we are achieving those targets.
Everything is streamlined, and it's a self-directed process. Easy navigation tasks and steps will be completed within the operational window.
To reduce our data storage costs, the most important thing is compression, which is the compression algorithm. With that, we save a lot of storage costs. We are now realizing that we have saved around 25% to 40% of the cost, which we had initially forecasted for this entire environment.
The data reduction technology reduced our power costs; there are definitely these things because data comes to be a part of the GreenLake enrollment, the green energy initiative. So, GreenLake is going to be considered a part of sustainability enrollment. So, whatever we have seen in terms of the overall calculation of the power consumption in our data centers, we have seen a lot of tremendous improvement in cost savings. That is correct.
For savings on the storage cost, it's between whatever we have forecasted. It is not possible to reveal the budgeted dollar values, but we have saved 25% to 35% so far, as per our calculation. Following up with the power consumption calculation, whatever the results, we have observed on a quarterly basis that we have saved approximately 25% of power usage consumption compared to when we were not using this enrollment.
We can make it better if we can put more features for the use of GreenLake in hybrid multi-cloud enrollment. Multi-cloud enrollment means if we are going to use the same scenario as we are using, a single cloud enrollment. Right now, we are facing some challenges in using it with a multi-cloud environment due to limitations in the service providers due to some compatibility issues. So if those things are going to be improved going forward, then we can leverage the GreenLake platform with multi-cloud.
The most important benefit of using multi-cloud is that we will gain more resiliency on our platform. If one of the clouds, one of the regions, or one of the areas goes down, the users will still have seamless control and similar accessibility to all their data.
We have been using the solution for the last four or five years.
From the overall perspective, if there are performance issues, there will be decreased productivity. There are going to be risks of outages, disasters, and data loss. If we are not going to take care of that, then the overall stability of the environment will definitely go down, which will lead to a huge loss in our revenue and productivity.
From the past so many years, I haven't heard of many problems, and I haven't experienced any critical issues within the entire platform. In terms of percentage, its overall stability is 99%.
The solution provides scalable, easy-to-use, flexible, and easy-to-deploy, easy-to-maintain, and easy-to-upgrade features.
Recently, we added more nodes into the cluster, and everything went well. The process was seamless, and we didn't face any challenges at all.
The solution being scalable and flexible, supporting both cloud and on-prem environments, and having complete interoperability features is very important to our overall business. We are expecting the platform to be more diverse and flexible as per our business needs. If the product fulfills all our requirements, works in different ways, and integrates with different platforms, then we are completely satisfied.
However, if things go wrong, if we choose the wrong product, and the integration doesn't work, or if the platform isn't adaptable to different scenarios and environments, then it could be challenging.
We would need to ramp up and plan for the client and environment from scratch, and it would be a complete waste of time, money, and effort. So whenever we select any product or technology, the primary factors we need to look out for are the scalability, interoperability, as well as flexibility of that platform.
My team has contacted them multiple times when we had a problem or an issue we were not able to solve and needed help. We immediately got support, and with their help, we were able to fix the issue.
As per the SLA, the service level agreement depends upon the severity and criticality of the issue. For a critical issue, they respond within 30 minutes.
For the support, overall post-sales support, and technical team support, I rate them ten out of ten. Every time we face any difficulty, whenever we face any challenge, their team stands with us 24/7 at any point of time until we are able to fix that until we are able to fix that issue.
Positive
Alternatives to file storage, we have used and still use alternative vendors in other areas and in other environments, which means other competitors' platforms.
But after seeing the effectiveness, quality, and overall stability we have been observing for so many years using GreenLake, we are planning to decommission those and reconsider GreenLake for those environments where we are going to go with the decommissioning and migration process.
I was engaged when we started initiating the lookout for those production solutions and interacting with the vendors who offered similar types of enrollment.
It is not easy, and it is not difficult. The deployment has moderate complexity.
The deployment took time. Overall, the overall timelines, including product selection, then demo, then testing POC, going with the design plan, then preparing the blueprint, then approvals, then starting with some migrations, implementation, and starting with operations, the overall project took five months.
This is not a one-person job. There was a team of 10 resources, and that includes the resources from the vendor side, HPE's side. And as things moved forward, we added six more members. When we finished and handed over to the operations team, there was a complete team effort of 18 resources during the handoff. It started from 10 and ended when we were at 18.
Operational tasks, backup, restore, patch management, health checks—our operations teams work 24/7 for that purpose. Complete maintenance is required, and we also have a maintenance contract with the vendor.
We worked directly with the vendor.
Basically, we could see the benefits of GreenLake when we started using it, which means that we integrated our cloud as well as the on-premises infrastructure and used GreenLake as an intermediate component.
For example, in terms of scalability, control, and latency, when going day by day, we saw that there were no performance issues, there was complete user satisfaction, and there were no issues. Everything is under control. There were no security risks at all. Everything is working as per compliance.
So, based on those benefits, this environment will be completely useful for everyone, including us.
Pricing is very aggressive. Every time when we go with renewals or anything, we got very competitive prices compared to those vendors and environments which we use. So we are quite satisfied with the overall pricing framework.
We looked at other solutions: Dell EMC, IBM, Hitachi. We did demonstrations, isolated environment testing, and POCs. We conducted multiple different sorts of testing, performance benchmark testing, and other testing on those platforms before finalizing GreenLake.
Due to the overall scalability, I can see what others on third-party feedback portals like TrustRadius and Gartner insights. The most important things were the price and performance. Price and performance mean whatever features we were looking for. We tested those features, and we found that this product met all our metrics. It passed all our tests, and the prices were quite competitive compared to other vendors. So, considering all those factors, we chose this.
I would rate this solution a ten out of ten in terms of performance, stability, operations, risk reduction, and the overall disaster recovery scenario.
I would like to advise all enterprise organizations looking for a unified storage platform that supports multi-cloud and on-premises with enhanced, optimized features to ensure smooth functionality and overall business operations.
