StorMagic: Revolutionary Software-Defined Storage System for IoT

Hans O'Sullivan, CEO

As the world economy rides the waves of data proliferation, one indubitable fact is that conventional data storage and management methods are not the right surfboards to be using. While mobile devices and the internet have been major contributors of big data, a relatively new phenomenon, IoT, has changed the dynamics of modern day data. Today the amount of data outside datacenters easily dwarfs the amount of data inside. And, with the influence of IoT likely to increase in the coming months and years, the data at the edge of enterprises will demand measures that can handle their sheer volume and vastly distributed nature. “This is where we, at StorMagic, focus our attention on—delivering storage software that helps organizations looking for low-cost, easy to manage and highly available storage at the edge of the enterprise,” states Hans O'Sullivan, CEO, StorMagic.

Even though Storage Area Network (SAN) could be a viable option to handle the scattered data outside datacenters, it has a serious shortcoming tied to it, the vulnerability of a “single point of failure.” Counterbalancing this limitation, virtual SANs allow the data stored within servers to be synchronously mirrored onto other servers in the network. Inspired by virtual SANs capabilities, StorMagic has fielded its flagship product, SvSAN, in the market since 2006. The product leverages internal server disk drives and creates a highly-available cluster using two servers eliminating the need for expensive and external storage arrays. “Our customers are able to abate expensive external storage systems and consequently lower their OPEX and CAPEX by at least 40 percent.

Our customers are able to eliminate their reliance on expensive external storage systems and lower their OPEX and CAPEX costs by at least 40 percent

SvSAN is lightweight and delivers the performance and high availability needed on low-cost, industry-standard servers,” Hans O'Sullivan adds. SvSAN has been designed with mission-critical environments in mind where uptime is paramount. The software can be remotely deployed and managed, even in environments with poor network connectivity. Most importantly, SvSAN offers the flexibility to scale up the computational and storage capacities as the need arises.

Presenting a clear picture of the potential of SvSAN, Hans O'Sullivan cites two success stories. The first, Ontex, represents the product’s utility in large, multi-national business environments. The client deployed SvSAN on two x86 servers in its fully automated manufacturing unit in Belgium to increase resiliency and to combat against events such as fire and power outages. StorMagic enabled Ontex to eliminate the need for expensive external storage without any single point of failure and deliver the uptime the business requires to ensure smooth functioning of the factory. The next success story relates to SvSAN’s deployment in the harsh, widely distributed renewable power generation locations of E.ON’s Climate & Renewables (EC&R) division. Counting over 100 facilities, many of the locations were unmanned wind farms at sea, and biomass plants and solar farms in remote rural areas where replacement parts were six days’ travel away. SvSAN helped EC&R to reduce their storage costs, deliver highly available systems, but most importantly monitor and manage the remote sites centrally.

Hans O'Sullivan shares and credits a great deal of his company’s success in providing world-class solutions to its strategic partner Cisco. SvSAN is present in Cisco’s Global Price List which gives all Cisco sales makers and channel partners in any country around the world the ability to build robust solutions. “Our virtual storage software coupled with Cisco’s UCS servers, routing products, and their global support network gives end users a ‘one stop’ solution when building infrastructure to support IoT systems.”