Isilon Systems Research Report Sample

With the growth of Web, cloud, and data-intensive applications, companies are increasingly challenged to find better ways to scale and manage their storage environments without disrupting business operations or adding costly IT staff. One solution gaining popularity is scale-out storage, which supports data growth by adding new storage "nodes" when extra storage capacity is needed. This approach differs from the traditional scale-up architecture, which handles data growth by aggregating lots of individual disk drives behind one or two large controller servers.

With scale-out storage solutions, a software layer allows the multiple nodes to behave like a single, larger file system, known as single global namespace, making it easier to manage data growth without having to hire additional IT specialists. Also, as server prices drop and capabilities and capacities increase, scale-out storage solutions allow enterprises to replace large, costly equipment with a readily sized pool of inexpensive servers.