IT and Storage Analyst GigaOm names Infinidat a "Leader" and "Outperformer" in the 2023 "GigaOm Radar for Primary Storage for Large Enterprises"
Infinidat
Infinidat boasts a modern, AI-based, hybrid storage (InfiniBox) and solid state (InfiniBox SSA II) architecture that delivers a great feature set with compelling $/GB and $/IOPS figures. To achieve this goal, the InfiniBox and InfiniBox SSA II take advantage of a data path designed around a combination of DRAM, flash memory, and hard disk drives associated with sophisticated AI-based caching technology to optimize data placement. These features enable Infinidat customers to consolidate several workloads and more data per storage system to reduce the overall TCO of the infrastructure.
Infinidat has an easy-to-use, AI-driven management system to support and simplify day-to-day operations and provide proactive support. Both solutions support NVMe/TCP as well as NVMe-oF. Infinidat systems currently do not provide support for new media types such as quad-level cell (QLC) 3D NAND or storage-class memory. Infinidat claims that those media types must be thoroughly tested and currently do not bring significant advantages to its platform. However, Infinidat utilizes an SDS technology (InfuzeOS) that is media independent and will be able to support other commodity-based media types in the future without sacrificing performance.
InfiniVerse is a component of Infinidat’s InfiniOps technologies providing extensive and innovative AIOps and DevOps capabilities within and surrounding the InfiniBox platforms. It is delivered as a secure, cloud-based service and—as with all InfiniOps technologies—is included at no additional cost. InfiniVerse provides users with infrastructure-wide predictive analytics, monitoring, and reporting on capacity and performance so they can address potential issues before they become a problem. InfiniVerse collects millions of data points across Infinidat’s global install base, analyzed in real-time, and provides customers with the insights to optimize operational efficiency and availability. This solution integrates with data center AIOps solutions such as Splunk, Dynatrace, ServiceNow, and others.
Infinidat delivers essential cyber resilience (including ransomware protection and recovery) for storage with InfiniSafe. The solution is available on the OS and built on four capabilities: immutable snapshots (with expiration lock and protected snapshot policies), logical air-gap (both local and remote, with bidirectional replication), near-instantaneous recovery, and a fenced forensic environment for testing, validation, and recovery. The solution also includes guaranteed SLAs for immutability and snapshot recovery on InfiniBox and InfiniGuard systems, providing fast recovery capabilities even at scale. InfiniSafe can be combined with InfiniGuard to meet enterprise needs for modern data protection, disaster recovery, and business continuity. InfiniSafe is available at no additional charge on primary storage systems (InfiniBox/InfiniBox SSA) and secondary storage (InfiniGuard).
InfiniBox offers a clever implementation of the CSI plug-in for Kubernetes, which allows users to copy and migrate data to remote systems or the public cloud for backup, disaster recovery, or development activities. Infinidat offers a complete range of integrations for major OS and virtualization platforms.
Infinidat offers two STaaS models. The Elastic Pricing model is a mix of CapEx storage upfront and cloud-like operating expansions or bursts month to month, as needed. The FLX model is OpEx-based, with cloud-like pay-as-you-go consumption, whether you go up or down in storage capacity.
Strengths:?Infinidat offers large enterprise features and a balanced AI-based architecture that enables users to consolidate a wide range of workloads in a single system and deliver a consistent performance experience. It also provides noteworthy cyber resiliency capabilities through InfiniSafe.
Challenges:?If not addressed in the future, the lack of support for QLC 3D NAND might become a challenge.