CategoryProducts In Depth

Hyperconvergence software (HCI) usually leverages multiple replicas to provide redundant protection for storage data. However, the mainstream multi-replica strategy still cannot avoid the risk of data loss during the replica recovery process. To address this challenge, SmartX HCI 5.1 introduces the innovative “temporary replica” strategy. This strategy prevents the degradation of replica numbers during the replica restoration process, enhances the security of storage data, and strengthens the stability of core business services.

To facilitate users in leveraging network virtualization, SmartX has introduced PCI NIC pass-through capability in SMTX OS 5.1. This feature, combined with the existing SR-IOV pass-through and virtual NIC capabilities supported in previous versions, enables SMTX OS 5.1 to comprehensively support ELF (SmartX native hypervisor) users in harnessing the benefits of network I/O virtualization. Users can select the most suitable options based on their requirements for network performance, network isolation, and cost efficiency in various use cases, including futures trading, HPC, and more.

As a leading HCI solution provider, SmartX has also introduced the DRS feature in the latest HCI software version SMTX OS 5.1. Unlike VMware 6.x and other mainstream virtualization platforms, SMTX OS enhances DRS implementation with an innovative scoring system, which can fully adapt to the containerized environment, improving resource utilization and O&M efficiency.

To maximize GPU utilization, many enterprises choose to virtualize GPUs or use them in virtualization (including HCI). But how can we fully leverage GPU’s capabilities on virtualized IT infrastructure? And how can we provide stable, high-performance storage as well as compute resources for various GPU applications with an integrated IT infrastructure? To help users address these challenges, SmartX has introduced GPU passthrough and vGPU features in the upgraded HCI software SMTX OS 5.1.

One of the key challenges in replacing server hardware is ensuring the stability of mission-critical services during the hardware replacement. With SmartX HCI, O&M staff can achieve seamless replacement of HCI servers through two solutions: rebuilding the cluster on a new server, and rollingly replacing servers in the same cluster.

As cloud computing has advanced, technologies like network virtualization have made it easier for administrators to centrally manage networks. However, this has also led to increased complexity in network traffic within the cloud. Traditional methods and tools for diagnosing data traffic face challenges when it comes to visualizing and analyzing "east-west traffic" on virtual networks. This creates network blind spots and further complicates issue locating. 

One of the most prevalent problems encountered in storage systems is disk failure. Since all hard drives are consumable and subject to wear and tear, continuous usage can lead to a decline in disk performance. Hence, it is crucial to carry out frequent inspections and prevent disks from failing.

When businesses upgrade their IT infrastructure to hyperconvergence (HCI), they often hope to cut costs and improve resource utilization by repurposing existing hardware devices like servers. However, this can be challenging in practice as the selected HCI product may not be compatible with the existing hardware or may only be available in a packaged hardware form. Another challenge is managing both legacy and new hardware devices in a unified manner.

This article is a comparison of Nutanix and SmartX HCI in terms of offerings, storage architecture, and performance. While both Nutanix and SmartX HCI solutions are comprised of similar products based on similar architecture, SmartX HCI clearly outperforms Nutanix HCI in a variety of scenarios.

Users of VMware vSAN may experience issues such as high latency, cache breakdown, and performance degradation. While many factors can contribute to these problems, the design of storage architecture (e.g., I/O path and cache) plays a critical role. If you are troubled in the same way and seeking to upgrade your legacy IT infrastructure, here are some articles that can help you understand how vSAN works and how SmartX, with modernized HCI, can improve cluster performance and make IT simple.

This article compares the I/O paths of VMware vSAN and SmartX HCI by analyzing read and write I/O under various scenarios and their locality probabilities to explain the effects of the I/O path on storage and cluster performance.

In this article, we will compare the caching mechanisms of vSAN (using vSAN 7 as an example) and SmartX distributed block storage component ZBS*. Following that, a comparison of VM performance based on these two caching mechanisms is performed to disclose their business impacts.

We introduced the 4 critical capabilities of SmartX HCI in our August webinar, including 1) investment on demand and quick resource allocation, 2) support multiple hypervisors and hardware, 3) support mission-critical applications, and 4) intelligent operations and maintenance with zero downtime. But how does SmartX achieve these critical capabilities?

To help readers gain a better understanding of how snapshot works in VM and impacts I/O performance, we will evaluate VMware vSphere snapshots’ and SmartX SMTX OS (SmartX’s core HCI software) snapshot’s technical mechanism. We’ll also compare the snapshot performance of the two software through the test.

As far as we know, the ultimate performance of a distributed storage cluster is physically decided by its hardware configuration. However, if unexpectable problems such as hard disk and node failures happen and trigger the data recovery during business rush hours, users may find themselves facing a hard choice: which should be the priority, accelerating data recovery or optimizing business performance?