Earlier this year Nimble Storage announced their all-flash array called the Predictive Flash Platform; you can read my thoughts on the launch over here. InfoSight is one of the core components of that announcement, which is why we had the opportunity for a fireside chat with the Nimble Storage data science team. We discussed the workings of InfoSight & VMVision and how this relates to actual benefits for an owner of a Nimble Storage array. This post will also touch on some of the key points discussed during the later Storage Field Day 10.
InfoSight
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On the 23rd of February, Nimble Storage announced their new Predictive Flash platform as an extension of their current product portfolio. It uses the same trusted software, but leverages the speed of flash and advanced analytics to offer higher performance storage. A customer expects data to be available instantly and without delays. Nimble Storage makes sure this is the case based on a three-pronged approach: high density solid-state storage, cloud based management and big data analytics to proactively solve issues before they cause a problem for the business.
I first met the Nimble Storage team at Storage Field Day 6. Back then they impressed mightily with InfoSight: Nimble’s cloud based management platform for their storage arrays. It offered proactive failure detection by gathering statistics from all Nimble Storage arrays and using that intel to automatically resolve issues before they could become a hassle for the customer. It also allowed the Nimble engineering teams to blacklist upgrade paths, making sure that a known faulty software upgrade did not inadvertedly cause downtime on other storage arrays. Now, a year later, Nimble is celebrating its fifth birthday and I can’t help but notice: it’s come far since the start-up phase.