On 22-May-24, Infinidat announced the launch of InfiniBox G4 and InfiniBox SSA G4, the next generation of storage systems in the InfiniBox family, and a host of improvements and additions, including controller upgrades, InfuzeOS Cloud Edition, and InfiniSafe cyber resiliency capabilities.
InfiniBox G4 & InfiniBox SSA G4
The new InfiniBox G4 (hybrid) and InfiniBox SSA G4 (all-flash) platforms are based on a new hardware platform architecture that is built on industry standard servers and embeds AMD EPYC single socket 64-core CPUs, providing 31% more cores compared to the previous hardware generation. Those CPU-level improvements also come with PCIe Gen5 and DDR5 RAM, providing not only overall performance (up to 2x depending on the model), but also better power efficiency (20% more power efficiency per core). The platforms are powered by InfuzeOS V8, which is also fully interoperable with previous versions of InfuzeOS.
InfiniBox G4 / SSA G4 systems are now available with multiple capacity options, allowing organizations to purchase either partially or fully populated racks. The SSA G4 offers a smaller footprint with a 14 RU industry standard rack, making it suitable for co-lo and edge / small / mini data centers.
From a capacity perspective, SSA G4 systems start at 0.38 PB effective and can currently scale to 1.5 PB effective, with greater capacities potentially available in the near future. On the other hand, G4 hybrid systems will start at 1.7 PB effective and will scale all the way to 7.9 PB effective with a new F4420 model (available at GA launch) that uses 20 TB drives. Those new models provide more capacity and workload consolidation opportunities combined with better management features, driving a better overall ROI/TCO, and providing an inherently greener approach compared to previous generations.
InfiniVerse Mobius
Continuing on the topic of ROI/TCO improvement and sustainability, Infinidat is now proposing an optional controller upgrade program branded InfiniVerse Mobius. Starting with G4 systems, Mobius will be applicable to systems purchased under CAPEX or capacity on demand consumption models, but not available to FLX-based sales, FLX being Infinidat’s full OPEX consumption model. Pricing details are not yet known.
InfuzeOS Cloud Edition for Azure
InfuzeOS Cloud Edition allows organizations to run InfuzeOS in the cloud by extending their on-prem environment for a variety of use case such as cloud-based BCDR, functional testing (for Dev, Test, and POC environments), but also in general to provide the same interface and data services to which organizations are accustomed to.
In this announcement, Infinidat is announcing the availability of InfuzeOS Cloud Edition in Azure, after it launched its AWS older brother about a year ago. This will provide organizations with true multi-cloud replication capabilities, allowing InfuzeOS to replicate data to multiple targets and thus increasing data resiliency and recoverability.
InfuzeOS cloud edition is functionally equivalent to its on-prem counterparts with the same data services, however it is not implementing a three-controller architecture and is based instead in a single node implementation that is limited by AWS & Azure cloud compute instance capabilities. As an outcome of those limitations, Infinidat’s guarantees provided to on-prem systems are not applicable to InfuzeOS cloud edition. Nevertheless, the ability to use core data services such as replication, immutable snapshots, and more combined with InfiniVerse should provide compelling outcomes, at the very least from a BCDR and recoverability standpoint.
InfiniSafe Improvements
Among the ground-breaking features included in the May 2024 announcement, InfiniSafe Automated Cyber Protection (ACP) augments the capabilities of InfiniSafe & InfiniSafe Cyber Detection by automating the creation of immutable snapshots in case of an early attack detection, above and beyond regular immutable snapshot schedules.
ACP can be triggered from standard syslog events and also supports SIEM and SOAR platforms; APIs and connectors are available for direct integrations, and ACP can also be orchestrated with InfiniSafe Cyber Detection scanning. This significantly reduces the threat window and allows to implement near real-time protection by catching issues early on and reducing proliferation. This can have a massive positive impact on prevention and recovery, and can save companies millions of $ from potential downtime and disruption of operations + loss of data.
In addition, InfiniSafe now comes with a Cyber Detection feature that is currently capable of scanning VMware datastores. It can scan all VMs in a datastore, or organizations can exclude VMs when necessary. Further improvements to InfiniSafe Cyber Detection are planned in 2H 2024. Existing immutability and RTO guarantees continue to apply.
TECHunplugged’s Opinion
The InfiniBox G4 and InfiniBox SSA G4 announcement comes with a flurry of new capabilities, marking May 2024 as an important milestone in Infinidat’s history. Although generational performance, capacity, and efficiency improvements are generally expected, the company continues to work on options to offer its customer ROI/TCO improvements that go beyond organic generational changes.
InfiniVerse Mobius is particularly noteworthy in this aspect, by providing for the first time generational controller upgrades. Not all details are known yet around how Mobius will operate technically, and what Infinidat’s plans are in terms of extending the lifespan of its platform, but this is a welcome capability that brings more efficiency to organizations while also improving the solution’s sustainability approach.
The extension of InfuzeOS Cloud Edition to Azure also brings more options to the table for organizations seeking simple and affordable BCDR / replication options to the cloud, for example as a tertiary replication destination that complements Infinidat’s own cyber resiliency stack, or simply as a secondary cloud location that is easy to deploy and manage. This will also be appreciated by organizations in EMEA, where Azure tends to be very popular.
Finally, cyber resiliency capabilities continue to be a key differentiator and laser focus of Infinidat in the primary storage market, with new features released on a regular basis, as seen in this announcement with InfiniSafe Automated Cyber Protection. These come on top of a solid set of capabilities contained in the InfiniSafe platform with logical air gapping, immutable snapshots, full orchestration, and immutability / RTO guarantees.