Cloud Propeller makes sweet music with all-flash storage

Applications are the operational heart of all Cloud Propeller clients, which run a wide variety of ERP, CRM, GL, OLAP, OLTP, ERM, BI, and EDW workloads. Maintaining enterprise-class data protection, efficiency, and easy-to-manage storage performance is therefore essential. Recently, Cloud Propeller decided it required a replacement solution for its VMware vSAN (virtual storage area network) hyperconverged infrastructure due to performance issues and other challenges. Cloud Propeller needed extremely reliable storage, and initiated an evaluation of NVMe-backed vSAN, Tintri, and Violin systems. After a thorough review, Violin emerged as the ideal solution -- offering Cloud Propeller the most robust mix of features and functionality -- chief among them, the utmost reliability and performance.

“Not only was Violin the strongest offering, but it also came in at the best price by a significant factor,” said Petar Smilajkov, CEO & Chief Architect, Cloud Propeller, Inc. “We also really liked that Violin is an active/active system, whereas many of its competitors are active/passive. In other words, with Violin’s active/active controller design, both controllers are available to handle our critical operations. We read and write data to both controllers simultaneously, which doubles the theoretical and significantly increases the practical throughput of our storage array. As such, during firmware upgrades there is no traditional ‘failover’ or IO pause, rather we only cut the available throughput in half during that time. And, if one controller fails, we immediately have access to the second controller without interruptions for performance and operations continuity.”

Today, the Violin QV-Series ensures consistent low latency data access and throughput for Cloud Propeller’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Backup as a Service (BaaS), Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) offerings. Cloud Propeller and its clients can now deploy critical applications with unrivaled data protection, efficiency, and easy-to-manage storage performance to meet current and future business demands.

“Cloud Propeller required a solution that would enable them to continue to compete with the large well-known public clouds, but in a more manageable, faster, affordable, and trustworthy fashion,” said Surya Varanasi, CTO, StorCentric, parent company of Violin Systems. “Violin’s 100% NVMe architecture will enable these capabilities, helping Cloud Propeller to not only meet customer requirements, but also rapidly launch new services, reduce IT costs, and increase profitability.” He continued, “We are also delighted and proud to welcome them into the Violin Systems channel partner ecosystem.”

Cloud Propeller now offers Violin Systems to end customers, knowing the all-flash NVMe storage can easily optimize their business applications such as VMWare, Oracle, Microsoft, and SAP while lowering overall IT costs. Fast out of the gate, one of its first sales was to a local state government agency that needed to replace its aging Nimble storage. The client purchased two Violin storage arrays, which, having been set up and configured by Cloud Propeller, are now managed directly by the government client. If help is required, the client knows that they have a direct line to Cloud Propeller who will seamlessly provide assistance and deal directly with vendor support service, as their Professional Services supplier, if necessary.