SmartX has launched SMTX Kubernetes Service (SKS) version 1.4. This production-grade container management product now offers improved observability and operations & maintenance (O&M) capabilities, along with “multi-tenancy” support.
SmartX is thrilled to introduce Enterprise Cloud Platform v6.2, delivering enhanced security, compliance, performance, and availability for enterprise users.
With the release of SMTX OS 6.1, SmartX ECP improves its capabilities in handling hard disk failures by adding new features to identify I/O blocking and software RAID failures, further ensuring continuity and stability for critical businesses.
In this blog, we will dive deep into the configuration strategies for using EC, and provide the best practices for using data replication and EC in SmartX ECP through comparisons and real cases.
As SmartX keeps innovating IT infrastructure solutions and offers SmartX Enterprise Cloud Platform (ECP), this article will provide updated information on what makes SmartX ECP a competitive alternative for Nutanix solutions, including product and performance comparisons, four migration approaches, and four customer use cases.
With the release of SMTX OS 6.1, ZBS (distributed block storage component of SMTX OS and SmartX ECP) has enhanced its storage tiering model by segmenting the cache layer into a cluster-level write cache pool and a node-level read cache pool, allowing users to leverage Erasure Coding (EC) for data redundancy protection under extensive data storage scenarios while improving space utilization.
SKS 1.3 greatly improves the user experience of container management on SmartX Enterprise Cloud Platform (SmartX ECP).
As the software-defined network and security component of SmartX Enterprise Cloud Platform (ECP), Everoute 3.0 introduces Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) networking, which provides secure and isolated network space for virtual machines (VMs) in SmartX enterprise cloud environments.
Recently, SmartX officially launched HCI 6.0, enhancing our Enterprise Cloud Platform (ECP). One of the standout features is the introduction of SMTX File Storage (SFS), which enables SmartX ECP to offer enterprise customers stable, high-performance, and scalable distributed file storage services. With SFS, enterprises can meet diverse data storage needs using a single platform, reducing the costs associated with legacy NAS procurement while boosting storage reliability and performance.
Featuring the converged deployment of compute and storage, SMTX OS (SmartX hyperconvergence infrastructure software) enhances the effectiveness of VM HA through storage features such as multi-replica strategy and rack awareness (topology-aware data allocation). Additionally, it offers rich VM rebuilding services that enable IT engineers to address various server and VM failure scenarios through an optimized VM HA function.
With these updates, SKS 1.2 helps users apply AI scenarios in containers based on easily created Kubernetes clusters.
This article presents empirical performance data of Kubernetes running stateful and stateless applications on VMs (SMTX Kubernetes Services, referred to as SKS) and bare-metal servers. Overall, the results demonstrate that SKS shows performance ranging from 82% to 96% of bare-metal-based Kubernetes, indicating that VM-based Kubernetes can effectively meet the requirements of the majority of containerized applications in production environments.
With the introduction of SmartX HCI 5.1, our HCI portfolio has evolved into a full-stack solution that provides unified computing, storage, network, management, network & security support for virtualized and containerized applications in production environments. In this article, we will delve into key feature upgrades and new components of SmartX HCI 5.1, unveiling their potential to drive business value.
To address the dynamic nature of data traffic in virtualization, SmartX introduces Everoute 2.0, a network and security product with an upgraded software-defined network load balancing feature. This feature enhances application performance and availability, offering unified support for both virtual machines (VMs) and containers running on SmartX HCI (ELF) clusters.
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.
SmartX HCI, the full-stack HCI for both virtualized and containerized applications in production, announced earlier its new version 5.1. If you’re interested in the new features and demos, don’t miss out on our online webinar next week!
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.
Presently, ZBS uses RDMA (remote direct memory access) in two areas: the storage access network and the data synchronization network of internal storage. We have explored access protocols in the previous blog Exploring the Architecture of ZBS – How NVMe-oF Boosts Storage Performance. In this a…
In the article “Exploring the Architecture of ZBS – SmartX Distributed Block Storage”, we explained the communication between the Access (data access component) and the Meta (management component) in ZBS when I/O occurs. This is the latter part of the I/O path.
In this article, we will focus on the former part, i.e., the access protocol layer for communication between the computation side and ZBS. We will first evaluate different access protocols and explain the design and implementation of NVMe-oF in ZBS, and then provide test data of ZBS performance based on different access protocols.
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.
This article will walk you through the process of using knest to manage Kubernetes clusters step by step.
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 discuss issues around multi-tenancy in Kubernetes. In particular, we will thoroughly examine the two implementations of multi-tenancy – cluster sharing and multi-cluster – and provide suggestions for enterprises caught in a bind.
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.
In this article, we will describe the storage architecture of SmartX distributed block storage ZBS, focusing on its key capabilities and how we achieve them.
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?
Today, SmartX releases SMTX Backup & Recovery, a new product that provides backup and recovery solutions and enterprise-level data protection for data center workloads running on SmartX IT infrastructure (including SmartX HCI). SMTX Backup & Recovery 1.0 focuses on backing up virtual machines running on SmartX native ELF virtualization platform, to external NAS servers.
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?
Today, we are excited to announce the Virtink project, an open-source and lightweight virtualization add-on for Kubernetes.
Due to the limitation of centralized storage, it’s usually difficult and risky for the IT infrastructure based on legacy virtualization architecture to scale out. Hyperconvergence, on the contrary, enables flexible expansion and on-demand investment as it streamlines the architecture by converging compute virtualization and distributed storage. This is one of the most critical reasons why more enterprises are turning to HCI.
In this article, we focus on SPDK Vhost-user and explain how to leverage this technology to improve the I/O performance of Virtio-BLK/Virtio-SCSI storage in KVM. In particular, we tested vhost-user’s performance on SMTX OS, the SmartX HCI core software.
SmartX, a modern IT infrastructure innovator, has released the HCI Kit Community Edition, a free version of its hyperconvergence product SmartX HCI. The Community Edition includes core HCI software SMTX OS and management platform CloudTower. It is freely available, easy-to-deploy, feature-rich, and community-supported, providing easy access to hyperconvergence for worldwide users.
In this article we would answer these questions by explaining the differences between the hyperconverged and legacy VMware virtualization infrastructure.
As anyone who has worked as an IT infrastructure administrator knows, upgrades of software, hardware, and patches can always be nightmares. This is because IT infrastructure upgrades may incur unexpected problems and cause system outages, which can be a catastrophe to critical business — with a massive loss not limited to revenue and reputation. So most companies would avoid upgrading their IT infrastructure too often.
SmartX has announced the addition of a new Network and Security component to its hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI). With micro-segmentation at its core, the new component aims to help customers secure east-west traffic in various virtualization scenarios, enhance network security inside data centers, and build “zero trust” enterprise cloud infrastructure.
SmartX has released the newest version of SMTX ZBS (version 5.0), an upgrade of its leading distributed block storage product specifically designed and developed for production environments.
Leading hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) provider SmartX announced its latest high-performance, low-latency HCI solution and SmartX Halo P series appliance built with SmartX’s core software SMTX OS and Intel® Optane™ persistent memory (PMEM). For the first time in the industry, SmartX has…
SmartX announced that the Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver of its distributed storage platform SMTX ZBS has been added on Kubernetes CSI production drivers list so as to integrate block storage system with Kubernetes containerized environment. Enterprise users can not only leverage SMTX ZBS to build private cloud and hyper-converged infrastructure system, but also introduce persistent storage into stateful applications on Kubernetes.
A recent joint lab testing by SmartX and Intel finds out that SMTX OS, core software of SmartX, combined with Intel 2nd Gen Xeon Scalable Processors and Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X can create a hyperconverged infrastructure that produces significant system performance gains and reduces the latency for low IO queue depth, mission-critical workloads such as Oracle Database.