Bangkok--Feb 2--PC & Associates Consulting
New Platforms and Innovative IP Storage Software Help Customers
Simplify and More Cost-Effectively Tier Storage and Leverage IP Networks
EMC Corporation today introduced a broad range of new storage and virtualization solutions, including availability of the world’s largest and most flexible high-end storage array, innovative new file system software and new network attached storage (NAS) virtualization capabilities. These new solutions simplify and extend the benefits of information lifecycle management (ILM) to more applications and more information using cost-effective and ubiquitous IP (internet protocol) networks.
The announcement detailed several innovative new technologies and additions to the EMC product lineup that help customers bring more of their information together (see attachment) for improved economics and management.
EMC today introduced:
Entry-level and high-end configurations of its flagship EMC Symmetrix DMX-3 storage array, including those featuring new low-cost, Fibre Channel (LC-FC) 500 GB (gigabyte) disk drives, which enable a single high-end storage array, for the first time ever, to scale beyond a petabyte (1,024 terabytes) of capacity. This new feature enables more information from more applications to be stored on a single array and enables multiple tiers of storage to be managed on the Symmetrix DMX-3 platform.
EMC Multi-Path File System for iSCSI (MPFSi) file system software, which is a first in the industry. This software delivers substantial performance and cost improvements for customers in data intensive environments that process large files over IP networks, including grid computing, rich media, software development and others.
Major enhancements to the EMC Rainfinity Global File Virtualization platform, including Global Namespace Management, which provides a unified view of all files and file systems located on heterogeneous file servers on an IP network. The Rainfinity platform now also includes Synchronous IP Replication, which provides improved protection capabilities.
Enhancements to EMC Centera content addressed storage (CAS) system, including Event-based Retention and Litigation Hold software features that give customers more security, flexibility and control over their archived information for regulatory and legal purposes.
“Managing the growth and complexity of an IT infrastructure has become an enormous challenge for customers,” said Dr. Tatchapol Poshyanonda, Country Manager, EMC Thailand. “In 2005, data stored on disk arrays grew more than 70%. That growth, combined with changing requirements in areas like governance and protection, has resulted in increased costs and information management challenges. These new technologies, which leverage cost-effective IP networks, help customers make their information infrastructure more cost effective, simpler and smarter and extend the reach of their ILM strategy.”
Details of Product Announcement:
EMC DELIVERS WORLD’S FASTEST, MOST FLEXIBLE AND SCALABLE STORAGE ARRAY
EMC announced availability of the world’s first storage array capable of scaling to more than one petabyte (1,024 terabytes) of capacity. The record capacity is made possible through the qualification of Symmetrix DMX-3 system configurations supporting up to 2,400 disk drives and the availability of new 500 gigabyte low-cost Fibre Channel (LC-FC) disk drives. This new disk drive technology, compatible with all Symmetrix DMX systems, enables EMC to provide customers with significant total cost of ownership benefits by enabling the consolidation of more information, applications and storage tiers into fewer arrays and storage networks. EMC is the first to deliver this new disk drive technology in a high-end array.
EMC also introduced a new entry-level Symmetrix DMX-3 system configuration. For the first time ever, customers can incrementally scale the performance and capacity of a single array from 7 terabytes, using 96 disk drives, to more than a petabyte with 2,400 disk drives. The Symmetrix DMX-3 system was specifically designed with the performance, scalability and reliability required to support high-end configurations in a single array. Customers can non-disruptively scale capacity, performance or both to meet their changing storage requirements. The extensible DMX architecture provides the Symmetrix DMX-3 system with near linear performance scalability as channel directors, memory directors and disk directors are added to the system.
The Symmetrix DMX-3 system, the industry’s fastest, most scalable and flexible, was introduced in July 2005 and began shipping in August 2005, with these latest configurations and capabilities being delivered ahead of schedule.
In addition to new Symmetrix DMX-3 system configurations, EMC today introduced several information management software and technology enhancements for the Symmetrix DMX-3 system, including:
Native Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) support for host and remote replication on Symmetrix DMX-3 systems, which eliminates the added expense of external channel converters and gateways when replicating large amounts of data over less-expensive Ethernet networks. This support is fully backwards compatible with prior generation Symmetrix DMX arrays and the Symmetrix 8000 series.
Symmetrix DMX-3 system support of the IBM iSeries system, the only non-IBM storage array that supports the popular midrange server platform.
Symmetrix DMX-3 system support of TPF (Transaction Processing Facility), a real-time operating system for IBM mainframe environments.
EMC z/OS Storage Manager software, which provides mainframe-native management for all Symmetrix storage systems and greatly improves management of storage arrays in a mainframe environment.
NEW RAINFINITY GLOBAL FILE VIRTUALIZATION CAPABILITIES SIMPLIFY NAS MANAGEMENT
The new release of EMC Rainfinity Global File Virtualization includes two significant new capabilities, Global Namespace Management and Synchronous IP (internet protocol) Replication, which provide customers with greatly improved management and protection capabilities for all of their file-based information throughout its lifecycle.
The EMC Rainfinity Global File Virtualization technology provides heterogeneous NAS and file server virtualization to achieve increased networked storage utilization, optimized performance, accelerated storage consolidations and flexible data protection. The Rainfinity platform is the latest addition to EMC’s industry-leading storage and server virtualization technologies, which also include the company’s SAN (storage area network)-based EMC Invista virtualization platform and the server virtualization capabilities provided by VMware.
The new Rainfinity Global Namespace Management capability provides a unified view of the files and file systems that are located on any number of heterogeneous file servers and NAS devices on the IP network. The Global Namespace capability also centralizes the management of industry-standard Windows and UNIX namespace services across distributed environments. The Rainfinity Synchronous IP Replication capabilities provide increased protection for critical files and file systems via synchronous replication over the IP network. Additional features include granular administrator control of replication below storage device and disk volume levels, as well as the support of multi-vendor storage environments and heterogeneous deployments.
Virtualization has rapidly become a critical enabling technology for NAS. According to a survey conducted by Coughlin Associates, NAS virtualization deployments are projected to double in 2006. EMC NAS virtualization solutions are being deployed by customers in major industries including automotive, biotech, education, healthcare, manufacturing, technology and financial services. These customers include four of the top five U.S. financial institutions.
The Rainfinity platform also includes powerful capacity management, performance management and tiered storage management applications that lower the total cost of storage ownership by optimizing the entire multi-vendor NAS environment. The capacity management function locates and resolves any capacity issues and performs capacity load balancing to optimize storage utilization. Similarly, the performance management application identifies and addresses performance issues and eliminates bottlenecks and hotspots. The tiered storage management takes advantage of the Rainfinity migration capability by using frequency-of-access data to identify unstructured data for relocation to lower-cost, near-line storage, maximizing an organization’s investment in tier-one storage hardware.
NEW EMC IP STORAGE SOFTWARE DELIVERS UNMATCHED PERFORMANCE AND EASE OF USE
With the introduction of this innovative new file sharing software, EMC is taking IP storage performance to new levels while helping customers fully leverage their cost-effective IP storage infrastructures. The inherent intelligence of The unique EMC Multi-Path File System for iSCSI (MPFSi) file sharing software utilizes standard NAS with the low-overhead iSCSI protocol to quickly and efficiently send large blocks of data over the IP network. MPFSi works in conjunction with EMC’s leading storage platforms to significantly improve performance over traditional file system deployments, and at dramatically lower prices than typical SAN deployments.
MPFSi can deliver substantial performance improvements for customers in data intensive application environments like software development, engineering design, rich media and in an emerging class of grid environments that push the limits of traditional NAS appliances. The client code of this unique software is available for open source use through SourceForge.Net as iRoad (http://sourceforge.net/projects/fmp-road) to enable users to customize the technology for their needs.
EMC is also further helping customers using its EMC Celerra? NAS systems lower costs while improving storage utilization with new Celerra virtual provisioning software. Frequently, application owners will request more storage capacity from storage managers than they actually require. The Celerra virtual provisioning capabilities allow both file systems and iSCSI LUNs (logical unit numbers) to be logically sized to required capacities while physically provisioned with less capacity. This reduces over-allocated storage capacity and significantly reduces costs. Additionally, virtual provisioning provides Automatic Filesystem extension and dynamic iSCSI LUN extension. Storage administrators can increase the physical allocation “on the fly” as needed, while ensuring that internal service levels are met.
As iSCSI emerges as an important component of an ILM strategy, the protection of data using iSCSI is a key requirement. The new EMC Celerra Replicator for iSCSI software provides enterprise-level scalability, offering customers the ability to create more replicas than ever before. The initial release is capable of scaling to more than 1,000 iSCSI LUNs. This improves protection and provides greater flexibility by enabling business continuity and non-disruptive remote backups for more of the enterprise. Because only changed data is transmitted, less network bandwidth is used, resulting in improved network efficiencies. This enhancement dramatically improves replication performance and reduces costs. In addition, Celerra Replicator supports long-distance iSCSI replication, providing even greater levels of protection and compliance.
NEW EMC CENTERA FEATURES DELIVER ADVANCED RETENTION MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES
EMC Corporation today unveiled new advanced retention management software for the EMC Centera content addressed storage (CAS) platform that helps customers address various complicated day-to-day, governance and regulatory requirements. The powerful new capabilities, in addition to several other new software enhancements, let organizations more effectively manage their archived information throughout its lifecycle.
EMC Centera remains the world’s most widespread, affordable and secure repository for information archiving. Through the end of 2005, more than 2,300 customers have deployed Centera and amounting to nearly 70 petabytes (70,000 terabytes) of capacity as the archiving backbone of customers’ information lifecycle management (ILM) strategies. Since November 2004, the number of customers using Centera has more than doubled, highlighting accelerating market acceptance of this groundbreaking technology.
Based on customer input, EMC has developed innovative new Centera features that enable authorized application users and administrators to easily identify and extend retention periods for specific records or objects in the Centera archive. The new Event-based Retention (EBR) and Litigation Hold features help Centera Governance Edition and Centera Compliance Edition Plus customers deal with more varied and complex scenarios. For example, e-mail messages and documents that are scheduled to be automatically deleted per policy can be easily identified and retained if they are material to legal, regulatory or other events. The record or object can then be deleted when appropriate.
Additionally, EMC is introducing new enhanced security features for Centera that provide greater levels of control. The ability to now create management profiles gives organizations greater flexibility to determine who can have access to specific data and at what level. For example, IT staff may have authorization to configure and maintain the archive, but searching, modifying and developing reports based on the information can only be executed by authorized corporate or legal staff. The new feature also provides a full audit trail of all configuration and management activities for further governance and compliance purposes.
Improving capacity utilization and scalability
In addition to new software enhancements, EMC today also announced Content Parity Protection for eight-node Centera configurations for improved capacity utilization. Also, EMC announced availability of new 500 gigabyte (GB) low-cost serial attached ATA (SATA) disk drives in all Centera configurations. EMC continues to offer 320 gigabyte SATA disk drives in the Centera four-node mid-size configuration, providing an attractive entry point to active enterprise archiving.
For Reporters: For more information, please contact:
Khoo Yin
Senior Marcom Specialist
EMC South Asia
Tel: +65-6427-1741
Fax: +65-6333-6878
Email: [email protected]
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PC & Associates Consulting Co., Ltd.
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