Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series: the benefits of hybrid and all-flash storage

In today's digital world of rapidly growing data volumes, every type of business requires efficient, scalable and reliable information storage. This calls for flexible IT solutions that can meet the needs of any organisation, from a small business to an enterprise.

The Lenovo ThinkSystem DM series is a powerful range of enterprise storage solutions that combine the benefits of the hybrid flash array and all-flash array storage. Its flexibility, reliability and performance have made it the choice of many organisations looking to optimise their IT infrastructure and data management.

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series All-Flash and Hybrid Flash Array Overview

All-flash array. All-flash storage systems use only flash media to deliver exceptional performance with minimal latency. The rapid processing of requests makes these arrays ideal for high-performance databases, virtualisation systems and analytics platforms. All-flash solutions provide maximum data processing speed and support for critical workloads.

Hybrid Flash Array. Hybrid arrays combine flash drives with traditional hard disk drives to balance cost and performance. They are ideal for backup, data archiving and load-balancing environments. This approach allows you to store the most relevant data on SSDs, while storing large amounts of data on more economical HDDs.

All-Flash Array: the benefits of maximum performance for the modern business

All-Flash Array (AFA) storage systems use only flash media, allowing exceptional performance with minimal latency in processing requests. They have become an integral part of the modern IT infrastructure, providing fast access to critical data, ideal for high-performance databases, virtualisation, analytics platforms, and other critical workloads.

The ThinkSystem DM Series All-Flash delivers unprecedented storage performance and scalability that enables businesses to respond quickly to market changes. This storage system supports data reduction ratios of up to 5:1 without sacrificing performance. This means businesses can store more data while spending less on hardware. Key benefits:

• High data availability and reliability. All-Flash DM Series systems are designed for high availability and reliability. They are able to operate without downtime and protect critical workloads from failure. With synchronous replication and instant failover, DM Series ensures data is retained even in the event of a hardware failure.
• Infrastructure consolidation. Using All-Flash solutions also allows you to consolidate your infrastructure through vertical scaling, making your system as flexible as possible. You can easily increase storage capacity up to 57 PB by combining different types of workloads - block, file, and object - using a single interface. This simplifies administration and reduces overall management costs.
• Integration with Cloud Platforms. DM Series systems offer seamless integration with hybrid cloud infrastructures, enabling organisations to create flexible data management solutions. Integration with platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and IBM Cloud enables organisations to store data in the cloud while simplifying access and management of information.
• Specialised management software. The ONTAP software used in DM Series systems provides secure and efficient access to data, with comprehensive information management, backup and recovery capabilities. With instant cloning, data replication and automated backup capabilities, organisations can significantly increase productivity without incurring additional management costs.
• Cost savings and reduced power consumption. In addition, all-flash solutions can reduce energy costs by up to 11 times compared to traditional disk-based storage. This not only reduces the total cost of ownership but also helps to reduce the company's carbon footprint.

ThinkSystem DM series all-flash array systems offer businesses incredible performance, high reliability and unprecedented flexibility. They enable you to efficiently manage critical workloads, reduce costs and quickly adapt to changes in your business environment. 

Hybrid Flash Array: optimising performance and flexibility for modern businesses

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series hybrid flash arrays combine the benefits of flash and traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) to provide the best balance of cost and performance. This approach makes them ideal for a wide range of applications, including backup, data archiving and processing environments with varying workloads. With hybrid storage, organisations can keep the most relevant data on SSDs, which offer fast access speeds, while storing the bulk of data on more cost-effective HDDs.

Benefits of using Hybrid Flash Array:

• High performance and data optimisation.

DM Series hybrid arrays feature NVMe cache for superior performance and query processing speed. This technology significantly reduces latency and improves operational efficiency, which is critical for businesses looking to respond quickly to market changes and meet customer demands.

ThinkSystem DM systems have demonstrated the ability to reduce data volumes by up to 3:1, helping to reduce storage costs and optimise resource utilisation. This is particularly important for organisations that have limited budgets but still require high-performance storage solutions.

• Flexible storage and easy integration.

ThinkSystem DM series hybrid arrays integrate seamlessly with a variety of cloud platforms including IBM Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure via Cloud Volumes ONTAP. This allows organisations to seamlessly replicate data to multiple clouds, ensuring the reliability and availability of critical information.

With FabricPool technology, you can automatically move cold data to the cloud, freeing up space on expensive flash media. This not only reduces storage costs, but also improves overall system performance.

• High reliability and scalability.

DM Series systems are designed to meet the highest reliability and availability requirements. They can deliver 99.9999% availability through the use of innovative Lenovo software and hardware components. Customers can easily scale their solutions by adding new drives or upgrading controllers to grow with their business.

The ThinkSystem DM Series hybrid arrays are the optimal solution for businesses looking for high performance, flexibility and cost savings in their IT infrastructure. With strong integration with cloud platforms, robust data management and scalability, these systems help businesses easily adapt to changing market conditions.

Key benefits of hybrid and all-flash storage

Hybrid and all-flash storage systems offer a lot of benefits that make them ideal solutions for modern businesses looking to improve the performance, efficiency and reliability of their IT infrastructure.

1. Exceptional performance 

• All-flash arrays provide extremely fast access to data by relying solely on flash media, reducing latency and increasing request processing speed. These systems are suitable for high performance database, virtualisation and analytics platforms.
• Hybrid arrays combine flash drives with traditional HDDs, allowing critical data to be stored on SSDs for fast access, while voluminous data is stored on less expensive HDDs, optimising storage costs.

2. Scalability and flexibility 

• Both types of systems support vertical and horizontal scaling, enabling organisations to grow their storage capacity to meet their growing business needs. ThinkSystem DM systems can seamlessly scale up to 57PB by combining different types of workloads.
• The hybrid systems integrate seamlessly with cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and IBM Cloud, enabling organisations to create flexible data management solutions, including automated cold data movement to the cloud.

3. Cost savings 

• All-flash solutions use up to 11 times less power than traditional hard drives. This significantly reduces total cost of ownership and improves energy efficiency.
• Hybrid arrays with up to 3:1 data reduction capabilities can significantly reduce storage costs by optimising resource utilisation.

4. High availability and reliability 

• Both types of system offer high availability, particularly through synchronous replication and instant switching between sites. This ensures that data is retained even in the event of a hardware failure.
• ThinkSystem DM systems offer 99.9999% availability through robust hardware and innovative software.

5. Data integration and management 

• ONTAP software for the DM Series provides secure data access and advanced data management, backup and recovery capabilities. These include instant cloning and automated backup capabilities that increase business process efficiency.
• Integration with data management solutions, such as Lenovo XClarity, simplifies the administration and management of the IT infrastructure.

Hybrid and all-flash storage solutions are powerful tools for businesses seeking high performance, reliability and cost optimisation. They enable organisations to adapt to a rapidly changing market environment and improve the efficiency of their business processes.

An overview of Lenovo's complementary storage solutions

ThinkSystem DG Series All-Flash: optimising storage for the modern business

The ThinkSystem DG Series All-Flash is a storage solution that delivers high performance, efficiency and security ideal for demanding businesses. These systems reduce rack space and deliver better energy efficiency than traditional flash arrays. With guaranteed storage efficiency of up to 4:1, businesses can reduce storage costs without sacrificing performance.

Key benefits of ThinkSystem DG Series All-Flash:

• Space saving: Reduces rack space, optimising the use of data centre resources.
• Energy-efficient storage: High performance with reduced power consumption, making the system more environmentally friendly.
• Universal data management: Support for unified data management across multiple media and protocols, both on-premises and in the cloud.
• Industrial Security: Leading data protection, including ransomware protection, to ensure the safety of critical information.

Model ThinkSystem DG7000:

• Form factor: 4U + 2U for disc drives
• Processor: 40 cores
• RAM: 256 GB
• NVDIMM: 32 GB
• Expansion slots: 10

Model ThinkSystem DG5000:

• Form factor: 2U
• Processor: 24 cores
• RAM: 128 GB 
• NVDIMM: 32 GB
• Number of drive bays: 24
• Expansion slots: 4

The ThinkSystem DG Series All-Flash is the ideal solution for businesses looking to achieve high performance, reduce costs and improve data security. With innovative technologies and versatile data management capabilities, these systems are a reliable choice for today's IT infrastructures.

Direct Attached Storage D1224: efficient and affordable data storage

Lenovo's Direct Attached Storage (DAS) solutions, such as the D1224, are easy-to-deploy solutions that provide large amounts of storage at minimal cost. These systems are ideal for archiving, backup and expanding existing storage.

Key benefits:

• High capacity. The D1224 is a high-capacity JBOD that supports up to 192 HDDs or SSDs when connected via a single HBA. Each enclosure contains 24 hot-swappable 2.5" drive bays, providing flexibility in drive selection.
• Flexible configuration. The systems can be used as standalone JBODs or daisy-chained for easy storage expansion. Up to 8 D1224s can be connected in a single SAS chain.
• High-performance drive support. The D1224 is compatible with a wide range of drives, including enterprise SAS HDDs (15,000rpm, 10,000rpm, 7,200rpm) and SSDs to meet a variety of performance requirements.
• Reliability and availability. The D1224 delivers 99.999% availability thanks to its robust components. Systems include redundant I/O modules, redundant power supplies and hot-swappable drives to ensure maximum uptime.
• Easy to deploy. New modules are easily plugged in and immediately available for fast integration into your existing IT infrastructure. The system also supports virtualisation, allowing virtual machines to share these extensions.
• Cost optimised. The D1224 offers high performance at an affordable price, making it an ideal choice for customers on a budget. Businesses can significantly reduce the load on internal server storage while gaining massive volumes for archive and cold storage solutions.

Lenovo Direct Attached Storage is an efficient, reliable and affordable storage solution that meets the needs of today's businesses. With scalability, support for a wide range of drive types and high reliability, these systems are an excellent choice for organisations looking to streamline their business processes.

Real use cases

Financial sector. Critical transaction speeds and the need to keep large amounts of data secure are ideal applications for all-flash solutions.

Healthcare. Storing medical images, electronic patient records and other sensitive information with continuous access and encryption.

Retail. Managing product catalogues, analysing purchases, handling customer enquiries - hybrid data warehouses allow you to scale these processes effectively.

Media and entertainment. Work with large video files, stream, edit and store high-resolution media.

Case Study: Keeping London Moving Fast and Secure

When storage issues began to slow the performance of key business systems, London's leading bus operator, Metroline, upgraded its infrastructure with the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM5100F with NVMe flash drives. The new solution accelerates key workloads by up to 66%, allowing staff to focus on providing excellent service.

Customer feedback

“The Lenovo solution has made an astonishing difference to our end users. By accelerating key workloads, we’re helping employees to spend more time on value-added activities. We’re also fostering greater engagement between IT and the business, because they now see us as an enabler.” - Gary Stephens, Group Technology Director, Metroline

General Information

• Client: Metroline
• Industry: transport
• Product line: storage facilities
• Region: Europe

Customer challenge

Storage systems that were nearing the end of their useful life were causing Metroline to experience significant storage latency, dramatically increasing end-user response times for mission-critical applications.

Lenovo solution

Metroline replaced its legacy disc-based storage systems with a Lenovo NVMe flash storage solution that eliminated the previous latency and was easy to manage.

Business impact

Metroline is accelerating business application workloads by up to 66%, increasing employee productivity and operational efficiency.

Results

• Eliminate storage delays
• Server maintenance is 96% faster
• Application performance is 66% faster

By deploying the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM5100F with NVMe flash drives, Metroline was able to eliminate performance bottlenecks that were holding back critical business applications. The solution not only delivered 66% faster performance for key workloads but also improved the interaction between IT and the business, turning technology into a true business enabler.

How to choose the right solution for your business

Choosing the right storage solution is critical to the success of your business. With the variety of technologies available, it's important to follow a few key steps to ensure you make the best choice for your needs. Here are some guidelines to help you make the right choice:

1. Identify the basic requirements:

• Speed. Assess what speeds you need for your business processes. Do you need fast access to data for business-critical applications?
• Volume. Determine how much data your business plans to store in the next few years and how that volume may grow in the future. This will help you choose a solution that scales easily.
• Reliability. Make sure the solution offers high levels of reliability, data protection and availability. Examine backup and recovery capabilities.
• Integration with cloud platforms. If you plan to use the cloud, make sure the solution you choose integrates seamlessly with your platforms, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud.
• Virtualisation support. If your organisation uses virtualisation, check that it can integrate with VMware, Hyper-V or other virtualisation systems to ensure efficient resource management.

2. Compare total costs:

• Consider all the costs associated with purchasing, implementing, maintaining and operating the solution you choose. This includes not only initial hardware and software costs, but also power, cooling, maintenance and backup costs.
• Compare the total cost of ownership (TCO) of hybrid and all-flash approaches to understand which solution best fits your budget and business needs.

3. Evaluate industry examples and data scales:

• Research what solutions companies in your industry are using. This can provide insight into which technologies are most effective and popular.
• Determine the scale of data you work with and compare it to other organisations to assess performance and storage needs.

4. Consult with experts:

• Engage IT professionals or consultants to assess your business needs and help you develop a storage strategy.
• Experts can provide valuable advice based on their experience implementing solutions for other organisations and help you create a flexible storage infrastructure that meets your specific needs.

These steps will help you make an informed choice that will improve the efficiency of your business and ensure the reliability of your IT systems.

Conclusion

The Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is more than just a storage solution; it is a reliable and scalable platform that delivers high-performance storage to meet the needs of today's business environment. With its versatility, the DM Series combines the benefits of hybrid and all-flash technologies, allowing organisations to tailor their storage systems to meet specific workloads and performance requirements.

The series supports seamless integration with cloud platforms, enabling organisations to create flexible and scalable storage architectures that meet today's data management needs. The solution also includes powerful archiving and backup capabilities that ensure data security and fast recovery when needed.

Key benefits of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series include resource optimisation, reduced storage costs and improved overall performance. With high system availability, organisations can be confident that their mission-critical applications will continue to run, reducing the risks associated with downtime.

With the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, you get not only a state-of-the-art storage infrastructure but also a powerful partner to help your business reach new heights.

Learn more about Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series solutions and give your business a modern storage infrastructure that meets all your needs and helps you stay competitive in a rapidly changing market! Contact us: marketing@integrity.com.ua!