Technology / Storage
Ultraspeed's Managed Cloud platform is constructed around the concept of highly redundant and scalable enterprise storage. Ultraspeed is now on its second generation of storage array networks (SANs) and its storage partner is the market leader 3PAR; Ultraspeed is also one of the few members in the UK of 3PAR's Cloud Agile programme.
Redundancy
Every SAN deployed by Ultraspeed is fully redundant. This starts with the heads (the main processing units that control where disk IO goes among the disks). Two heads operate in active / active mode, which means that data and workload is split between each head. Redundancy is also built in at a cage layer. Data is not just striped horizontally along the shelves it is also striped vertically down across each shelf. This allows the system to suffer a complete shelf or multiple disk failures in one shelf and continue serving data without interruption. In the event of a component failure, the part is either replaced from local spares or under four hours by our partner.
Performance
Ultraspeed uses enterprise storage with fibre channel disks to ensure that there is always enough capacity to allow functional IO to all clients. Ultraspeed monitor IO at an individual disk and client layer, Ultraspeed also take action in real time to migrate data to other areas of the storage array in the event of more performance being required. This service is delivered remotely online with no client impact.
UltraScalility
UltraScale is Ultraspeed's virtualised storage feature, is designed to scale easily and transparently. Ultraspeed can add new disks, shelves, and heads while storage is fully online and serving clients. Any required software updates to storage are delivered at the same speed.
Offsite backups
Ultraspeed utilises asynchronous data replication between SANs in London and Amsterdam on a weekly basis, as standard.
