Introduction to Agile Infrastructure

Agile Infrastructure Introduction
The agility, efficiency, and scale benefits demonstrated from the move to cloud computing infrastructure
has raised the bar on the expectations for IT global service delivery. This paradigm shift has established
a new benchmark for delivering IT services that is as much about self-service and automation as it is
about cost. To stay on top of these heightened service delivery standards, CIOs are searching for more
innovative ways to deliver infrastructure resources, applications and IT services, in a more agile, scalable,
automated and predictable manner. Helping make this vision a reality is the promise of the Next
Generation Data Center (see Figure 1).
Infrastructure (AI) reference architectures are
the result of an extensive configuration design,
testing and validation effort.
Closing the service delivery gap that exists
between IT today and the Next Generation
Data Center isn’t easily accomplished
using tools and technologies designed for
legacy infrastructure. The challenges IT
departments face today (see Figure 2) present
an entirely different set of problems than
those addressed by legacy infrastructure. The
innovation currently occurring with ecosystem
vendors up and down the infrastructure stack
directly reflect the changing demands.
To help accelerate an enterprise’s ability
to embrace these innovations, SolidFire
has aligned with leading technology
partners to deliver a series of pre-validated
designs for customers looking to deploy
cloud infrastructure. The SolidFire Agile
Figure 3: AI Design
With SolidFire AI, customers can stand up a
dynamic cloud infrastructure in significantly
less time, less space and for less money than
alternative converged infrastructure offerings.
AI allows enterprises to experience the benefits
of Next Generation Data Center design today
without creating unnecessary hardware
or software lock-in. By combining best-ofbreed tools and technologies into a modular
pre-validated design, AI drastically reduces
the complexity of adopting a private cloud,
while increasing the agility, predictability,
automation and scalability of an enterprise IT
infrastructure (see Figure 3).
SolidFire’s Agile Infrastructure designs are built using best-of-breed technology across the enterprise ecosystem - including Cisco, Dell,
OpenStack, Red Hat and VMware - to accelerate the deployment of a dynamic IT infrastructure.
solidfire.com
Software Defined Data Center
Infrastructure 2.0
Private Cloud
Cloud Computing
IT-as-a-Service
Next Generation Data Center
Agile
Scalable
Automated
Predicatable
Figure 1: The Next Generation Data Center
Figure 2: The challenges of legacy data centers
Unique attributes of the AI solutions include:
• Best-of-breed design
AI has been built using best-of-breed technology across all layers
of the stack to deliver a fully featured cloud infrastructure solution.
• Accelerated time to value
A pre-validated solution drastically reduces complexity of cloud
infrastructure in a Next Generation Data Center design.
• True scale-out
Scale-out design across compute, network and storage allows for
a more flexible and cost-effective design as infrastructure expands.
• Guaranteed performance
With SolidFire’s unique Quality of Service controls, AI can
easily accommodate mixed workload environments without
compromising performance to any one application.
• No lock-in
Modularity at each layer of the stack eliminates threat of
hardware or software lock-in.
To learn more about the configuration used to attain these benefits, including SolidFire’s leading all-flash storage system, please contact SolidFire sales at
[email protected], or visit the SolidFire website: solidfire.com/ai