Tintri Sets a New Bar in Storage: Tintri announced the next generation Tintri VMstore T600 series that has the capability to support twice the number of virtual machines per system when compared to the previous generations. In addition to the new T600 series, Tintri also announced the new Tintri Global Center, which is a new platform that enables global scaling of multiple Trintri VMstore systems and will seamlessly function as one global unit.
The T600 series is a 4U device that is capable of holding twenty four drives each. The T620 will be supported to run 500 virtual machines with a total of 13.5 TB of usable storage that is designed mainly for remote and/or branch offices of midsized IT environments. Some example user cases would be for VDI deployments with as many as 500 users as well as a possible midsized Windows consolidation effort. The T650 is geared towards larger virtualization environments with up to 2000 virtual machines and a total of 33.5 TB of usable storage. Some example use cases for the T650 would be for large database and enterprise apps workloads. This configuration would work well with large test and development workloads of SW, Oracle and or SAP. The T650 would also be well suited for larger VDI environments with up to 2000 users and will also provide centralized data protection as well.
Both the models in the Tintri T600 series provide mid-range and large enterprises with the Zero Management Storage Platform geared specifically for the virtualization and cloud space. The Zero Management Storage Platform is based on the Tintri FlashFirst design which means there is no initial setup to get things going or for ongoing administration to find and deliver an optimized storage platform. This will allow administrators to spend less time doing all the deployment, configuration and administration of the storage platform and freeing them up to focus on tasks or projects.
Tintri has been focusing on how to best handle the explosion of growth seen in most all data centers and with that to better scale the VMstore systems. The announcement of Tintri Global Center is the solution to that particular problem. Scaling storage with Tintri is now as easy as adding additional VMstore systems and leveraging Tintri Global Center for central administration, control and reporting for up to 32 VMstore systems. Think about that for a minute, with the T650 have a usable storage of 33.5TB you have the potential to manage around 1.072 PB of usable storage using Global Center. (33.5TB x 32 = 1.072PB). Along with all that centralized storagem you will be able to have a single view of all the VMstores and virtual machines as well as 30 days of VMstore and virtual machine granular performance (IOPS, throughput, latency), capacity and protection status. In future releases Global Center will enable third-parties to build out an ecosystem and functionality using REST API’s for automation and setting the stage for the future with architecture for a million virtual machines.
I was given the chance to get an up close look at Tintri Global Center while I was at VMworld 2013 in San Francisco and one of the biggest things that I have been really impressed with the was the design of the user interface. I found this interface to be extremely well thought out and presented in a simple straightforward method that I found very appealing and in my humble opinion is one of the best designed user interfaces that I have really taken note of in a while. It is a very sleek simple design that makes it very easy to look at and to work with.
In conclusion, this announcement is just another successful step forward on Trinti’s path to continued success. I think Tintri has been on a great journey. One I have watched grow and mature over time and this announcement just confirms my thoughts that Tintri is on a great path for them and for VMware virtualization in general. With that said, it does seem to expose Tintri’s Achilles’ heel in that currently the only really support working with VMware environments and have spent most all the time and effort focusing solely in the VMware space. When I had the opportunity to bring this up in a conversation it was mentioned that yes, most all research and development has been focused in the VMware environment, but that will not always be the case and at some point focus will be split so that the Tintri products will be supported on multiple hypervisors in the future.