Your business needs to find a storage solution for your data. It’s vital that you find and implement a solution that’s not only right for your business needs, but also cost-effective. After all, data is essential to keep you operating, and you need to make sure it’s easily accessible.
You need to consider the kind of storage you want — on-premises or the cloud? Is private or public better? Whatever your needs, you need to research the options out there and what will work best for you. We’re here to help with that!
In this blog, we compare Qumulo and Isilon, two big brands that offer great enterprise scale out hybrid file storage solutions. Read on to find out which one comes out on top.
Qumulo: Storage that seamlessly scales
Qumulo is a company that’s built around the user. They’re keen to express the lack of logic in using old storage devices for data files that are completely different now compared to ten years ago. So, they’ve developed hybrid storage devices that work with all types of data and can be scaled to meet your own specific data requirements.
Qumulo File System
The Qumulo File System offers a flexible storage solution that is transferable between on-premises and cloud-based platforms, allowing you the freedom to scale as you wish in the future, depending on your future business needs.
The solution can be run on a variety of platforms: on pre-configured hardware platforms, natively in the public cloud with Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform, or third-party hardware platforms like HPE. It is also capable of delivering 100% of useable capacity. It’s such a simple product to service and install, and you have real-time control over any administrative problems that occur as you’re scaling the product.
Isilon: Versatility & simplicity rolled into one package
Isilon is a part of the Dell EMC family, so you get all the quality you’d expect from such an established name in the world of tech. The Isilon product range introduces users to a variety of scale-out network-attached storage systems. They throw up all-flash, hybrid, and archive platforms for companies to choose from.
Dell EMC Isilon
This offering uses a highly versatile yet very simple scale-out storage architecture. In essence, it lets you speed up the access you have to massive hoards of data, while dramatically reducing the overall cost and complexity.
The Isilon series are all powered by the OneFS operating system, which helps to deliver over 80% storage utilisation. By comparison, most traditional options only have a 50% utilisation rate. These devices are made to be more efficient than most, but they’re also highly flexible. The Isilon storage solutions support all of the key protocols and data access methods, meaning they support so many different applications.
Qumulo vs Isilon
Both of these products are framed as cost-effective and efficient storage solutions. In fairness, they are both more affordable and scalable than most of the other options out there. However, we already notice a slight difference in the efficiency of each product. The Dell Isilon has a storage utilisation rate of 80% while the Qumulo is quoted at 100%. Both of these figures are still above the industry standard, but it’s worth knowing that there is a difference.
When it comes to hardware compatibility, the Isilon products aren’t as flexible as they are a fixed appliance, whereas Qumulo is a software solution which runs on certified platforms. This means you can avoid vendor lock-in, providing you with the freedom you might need in the future depending on your data needs down the line. Seeing as Dell dominates a lot of the hardware world, this might not be an issue, but it’s worth keeping in mind.
Both solutions also call upon cloud storage too. Qumulo uses a hybrid cloud file storage that claims to be the highest performance file storage system in the cloud. Isilon has interestingly been in talks with Google regarding its cloud storage. Dell EMC has asked Google to let them put the Isilon cluster in a Google Cloud Platform. It’s going to be called Isilon Cloud for GCP and will possibly be managed by Google. What’s interesting about Qumulo is that there’s no practical limit with the hybrid-cloud storage option. Also, you can still use it to keep small files without incurring any fees.
What’s the best pick for your business?
Qumulo vs Isilon isn’t a fight that throws up any clear winner. They both perform exceptionally well and offer high degrees of flexibility and scalability. In the end, the main question to ask yourself is what are you looking for in a data storage solution like this? Consider how much storage capacity you require, the level of scalability you need, and the hardware you use.
Obviously, your budget should be taken into account as well. Realistically, you’ll benefit from finding partners that can help you procure and pick out the best storage solutions. If your business has limited IT experience, then a lot of what’s been mentioned in this guide might go over your head. With some expert help, you’ll come to the best conclusion and decide which product is right for you.
Not only that, but you must remember that Qumulo and Isilon are both parts of your overall storage solution. There are other factors to consider like the hardware/software you utilise, the environments, and so on. Specialists can help you build a total solution that ticks all the right boxes and gives you everything you need.
In addition to specialists building your solution, you’ll also want general support down the line. Dell provides support for Isilon, but within their massive portfolio of products, meaning their support services aren’t as comprehensive. On the other hand, Qumulo is focused solely on Enterprise file services with a unique approach to customer success. For example, one of their tools includes opening a query via Slack, making them easily accessible. These are important aspects to consider when choosing a solution.
On that note, we’ll leave you with this: your data is a critical part of your organisation. If you don’t have the best storage solutions, then you’re swimming against the tide. You must find a solution that’s easy to manage, can be scaled as you grow, and offers a high degree of data security.
