At StorPool, we value the trust of our partners and customers greatly. We aim to help them get their data in order, оptimize and grow their business, eliminate their data storage issues, and deliver unmatched service reliability and availability. With StorPool Storage, we transform their sets of standard servers into an ideal foundation for large-scale clouds running diverse, mission-critical workloads. Learn how virtion GmbH optimized its platform with the help of StorPool in our latest video testimonial with Michael Kutzner, CEO at virtion GmbH.
Read the full transcript of the video testimonial with virtion GmbH
Please present yourself and your company.
Hello, I am Michael, founder and CEO of virtion GmbH. We are a managed services provider, sitting in Bielefeld in Germany. We are running managed services and infrastructure services for our customers in our data centre and in certain on-premises locations for customers requiring hybrid setups or mixed setups consisting of cloud infrastructure plus their local infrastructure. In addition, we also run managed environments in our customers’ data centres when there are good reasons to do that.
What is your use case?
One part of our infrastructure (and that is in every IT environment) is storage. And that is one of the most critical parts of our infrastructure. So we are running virtual machines on top of StorPool in our cloud. We are also using it, for example, for multi-terabyte databases, for file services, and many other services requiring high performance and stability on the one hand. And flexible scalability in terms of volumes, sizing, and features like snapshots for data cloning, setting up test and stage environments, etc. This is all supported by StorPool, and that’s why we are using it.
Why have you chosen StorPool?
When we were looking for a new storage system in 2013, we found that StorPool perfectly fitted into our existing infrastructure. So first – the hardware requirements were exactly what we could provide at that time. StorPool was perfectly integrated into OpenNebula, which we are using to manage our KVM-based cloud infrastructure. After visiting StorPool in Sofia, where we learned how to use it, install it, and manage the complete system, we installed it in our infrastructure, and the decision was practically clear at that time. It was perfectly fitting, and the team was always available when we had questions, problems, issues, etc. Each time we had questions, we contacted the team, and they usually solved our problems in minutes.
What changed since you implemented StorPool?
It’s an easy question for a long answer. On the one hand, we got a very flexible system, which was completely fitting into our and our customers’ requirements with an affordable pricing. On the other hand, it was an affordable storage system. On the other hand, it delivered a performance that was groundbreaking for the hardware setup running StorPool. That made our life easier, practically. Because the infrastructure is just working and it’s fast. And from day to day, we have the chance to support our customers in the best way possible.
How StorPool compares?
What were the other systems we were checking before deciding on StorPool? Well, we checked certain providers delivering hardware boxes using classical NFS systems. For example, we made installations of Ceph to compare if these systems were able to meet our demands for storage. But in comparison to StorPool – the performance was not right, the overhead was much too high, or the complexity of day to day management was too high. For example, with Ceph.
On the contrary, all that was fitting perfectly with StorPool. We found out that in day to day management, it’s really easy to handle the complete system. Not only when doing some planned maintenance, but also when hardware crashes or something is not working like expected. We found out that StorPool is practically a self-healing system where we don’t care about (the storage). And when there are real problems, we contact the team, and we get help in minutes.
What do you like in StorPool?
Well, there are only two or three things I think that need to be said: First, it’s the ease of maintenance. Then, the team, which is always available and for us that is very very important — we need a good supporting back office which helps us solve issues and problems, especially on the storage environment, in very short times. And the final thing is practically the non-existing problems in our storage environment. That is what I like in StorPool!
About virtion GmbH
virtion GmbH is a German managed services provider. Part of its portfolio are infrastructure services, server and storage virtualization, application management services data security and support for small and medium sized companies. Virtion is well-known and trusted on the market due to the quality services offered. The service provider is considered as a long-term, strategical partner by its customers.