mSAN vs vSAN
How does Micron21's mSAN platform compare to VMware's vSAN?
With the deployment of our mSAN platform initially being spurred on by the changes at VMware, one of the things that was top-of-mind when building this new platform was the importance of avoiding being locked-in with a provider.
Not only does using open-source software allow you to build platforms utilising the knowledge of a community of experts, but it also allows you to avoid the possiblity of these sorts of upsteam changes affecting your ability to provide a platform to your users.
However, that's not the only difference between our new mSAN platform and the older vSAN platform. There are many other benefits as explained below:
Increased Flexibility & Scalability
One of key aims of this new platform is to allow for more flexibility for users. Our mSAN storage cluster provides infinitely scalable storage while maintaining the high-redundancy infrastructure that users are used to.
By decoupling compute and storage capabilities, we are now able to offer Storage as a Service (STaaS), enabling all clients - whether they are colocated, utilise cloud services, or are hosted externally - to benefit from our solution, irrespective of their preferred infrastructure.
Unlike VMware clusters, which have scaling limitations, our mCloud platform's storage and compute clusters are designed for limitless scalability.
Our mSAN platform features advanced self-repair mechanisms, adjusting data distribution automatically to accommodate system changes or failures, ensuring continuous data access and protection. This scalability allows clients to start small and expand storage incrementally without restrictions - so performance scales directly with capacity increases.
Enhanced Data Protection
Our mSAN system is designed with redundancy in mind, using replication to spread numerous copies of data across its nodes, thus guaranteeing the availability of data. This system is more robust and fault-tolerant, offering superior data protection than our earlier VMware platform because this replicates data at least four times across various storage nodes.
Compared to VMware's vSAN, which replicated data twice, our new approach further reduces the risk of data loss from disk or server failures.
Georeplication & Journaling
For additional security, our mSAN platform supports real-time data replication to remote locations.
This remote data replication includes journaling every five minutes for up to a week, allowing for storage rollbacks to any point within that timeframe.
Improved Storage Performance
Separating compute and storage functions into distinct clusters also has the benefit of enhancing performance by preventing CPU contension between storage and the hypervisor, as apposed to the single-server stack approach with VMware's hyperconvergence.
Our backend is powered by enterprise-grade Dell hardware, incorporating NVMe Storage for high-performance workloads. Slower storage options for bulk or long-term archival needs are also available, with the flexibility to mix and match according to client requirements.
Freedom from Vendor Lock-in
From our perspective, companies put a significant investment into their cloud technologies and should not be beholden to the whims of major commercial interests.
mSAN is compatible with any hypervisor, hybrid cloud, or colocated environments - offering freedom of choice for users, as well as significant cost savings when compared with other cloud providers like AWS and Azure!
Want to know more?
We are committed to assisting end users, hosting and service providers, resellers and anyone seeking to move away from VMware as a result of Broadcom’s acquisition and strategy. We have dedicated, onsite support and solution architects that can assist including migration away from your current platform.
If you are interested in migrating over to our mCloud platform, please reach out to us via the form at the top of this page. We’d love to have a conversation and assist you on the next stage of your cloud platform journey.
