Why should a shared infrastructure platform be selected for SMEs?

Survey data show that in China, small and medium-sized enterprises to the national GDP contribution rate of up to 60%. However, there are few integrated solution platforms optimized for the SME environment in the IT marketplace. These small and medium-sized enterprises, including film and television production and start-up electric companies, they spend a lot of time in the office environment to work.

Previously, the basic rhythm of deploying IT environments was to buy one or two servers to meet the needs of the enterprise, then install the deployment, with a variety of software and tools on the online use. As the business grows, the physical way to expand IT infrastructure is to buy more servers, and for cost, functionality, and so on, the new server is not the same model or the same brand as the previous server. In this disorderly expansion of it architecture, the continuous change and migration of network switches and storage platforms. Finally, the complexity of various devices have compatibility and interoperability problems, management and maintenance has become a headache. Make it difficult for enterprises to improve operational efficiency, accelerate business growth, meet future development needs.

SMEs require an integrated solution that includes two to four servers for virtualization and backup, a large capacity for growth and high availability shared storage, affordable I/O appliances, and easy system management. In simple terms, SMEs need to organize all the devices in the IT environment, integrating these elements into a compact chassis that can be placed under a desk or work table or mounted in a rack.

Sharing an infrastructure platform is a homeopathy. The platform sets servers, storage, networking devices, and management features in one chassis, such as the PowerEdge VRTX, which Dell launches, is a solution designed for small offices. This all-in-one server reduces the conventional deployment and management of rack servers, not data centers, but can act as a complete application of IT infrastructure through a single box.

The PowerEdge Vrtx integrates four PowerEdge m-series half-high server nodes, with a 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch hard drive, with the highest capacity for 48TB data and networked devices. The VRTX can also be mounted on a rack, taking up only 5U of rack space. In addition, in the humanized design, the VRTX runs very quiet, supports the wide range of office-level noise.

All four server nodes have access to low latency internal shared storage, which is critical for clustering and virtualization (including vmotion). VRTX allows each server node to be a single storage pool, allocating virtual disks to a single server node or across server nodes, and migrating virtual machines in a VRTX chassis without paying for cabling, powering up, and managing sans.

In addition to cost, convenient management and efficient operation of small and medium-sized enterprises is another big measure of standards. Since the shared infrastructure has assembled all it elements, what is required is a management tool. VRTX uses a modular architecture and adds management capabilities for shared storage infrastructures. In addition, I/O features have been added to manage switches and network components, all of which are used from the same console.

Sharing an infrastructure platform is a good choice if you want to improve your office IT environment to make it simple, efficient, and scalable.