Its has been a busy week at Dell-EqualLogic. First the PS-5500E announcement and now they’re released a version of their Auto-Snapshot Manager for VMware.
If you are thinking of deploying (or already have) VMware in your environment, the aptly-named Auto-Snapshot Manager VMware Edition will no doubt make your life a lot easier. It leverages the VMware snapshotting technology to place virtual machines in the native snapshot mode, takes a SAN-based snapshot, then returns the environment to its normal state.
In their own words: “Integrated directly with standard VMware and EqualLogic APIs, Auto-Snapshot Manager/VMware Edition understands the relationships and location of virtual machines, VMFS Datastores, and PS Series SAN-based volumes. With intuitive SAN and VMware-centric navigation and a built-in scheduler, the VMware administrator can simply and flexibly set snapshot creation schedules of individual virtual machines, groups of virtual machines, or even all virtual machines in a VMware Datacenter, coordinating snapshot creation across all SAN-based volumes upon which the virtual machines reside.”
Benefits:
High performance, space-efficient hypervisor-aware SAN-based snapshot support
Automated, consolidated virtual machine backup and recovery
Scalable HW-based solution for online data protection of virtual infrastructure
Reduced snapshot space overhead and enhanced ESX Server performance
Fast recovery of virtual machines and VMFS DataStores
Easy to navigate GUI with both SAN and VMware-centric views
Snapshot policies logically assigned to virtual machine hierarchies
File this one under BIG: Dell-EqualLogic has just announced their latest array, the PS-5500E (development codename: Sumo). The PS-5500E packs 48 x SATA II drives into 4U of rack space making it one of the densest iSCSI SAN arrays around.
Certainly there are other arrays on the market that offer this level of density (Nexsan, Xyratex etc.) but no one offers the level and breadth of features and tight host-side integration that Dell-EqualLogic does. And because its completely virtualized, it plays well with all the other Dell-EqualLogic PS Series arrays, allowing you to build a true end-to-end storage platform.
Due to its intended role (replication DR and disk backup target, near line and archival storage tier), there are some particulars on the PS-5500E that make it unique among the rest of the PS Series family. It is SATA-only (for now), RAID 50 is the only RAID setting and PS-5500E’s can only be in a tier w/ themselves (altho they can be in the same SAN w/ all other arrays). You can add up to 12 in a single SAN, giving you a raw total capacity of 576TB!
Adding this new, ultra-dense tier of storage fills out the PS Series line and makes it an even more attractive enterprise-class iSCSI SAN solution.
There will be 2 drive options for the PS-5500E initially: 500GB (24TB Raw) and 1.0TB (48TB raw). Give us a shout if you’d like to discuss this or any of the PS Series arrays further.
Nexsan has announced today they are getting into the NAS market with the introduction of their first NAS appliance, “The Edge”. This 1U powerhouse runs Microsoft Windows Unified Data Storage Server (WUDSS) and can connect to the company’s SASboy, SATAboy and SATAbeast arrays allowing for true tiered storage up to 84TB.
They are pricing The Edge right in the middle of the SMB market. This should be important for a number of reasons: 1) they make very good RAID arrays, 2) they have AutoMAID which is their fantastic energy-saving “green” technology 3) they have historically very good support. Given that, The Edge, when paired w/ Nexsan’s arrays, will no doubt constitute an unbeatable value as most players in that market have somewhat kludgy solutions and even clunkier support….and you gotta love their product names!
Nexsan, the industry leader in ultra-dense and energy-efficient RAID storage recently announced their aptly named DATAbeast storage system. DATAbeast is a melding of their current SATAbeast and SASboy arrays into a whole system that is far greater than the sum of its parts. It offers central management for the entire environment which can scale from mere terabytes to a very respectable 4 petabytes. On top of that they have layered SAN (4GB FC now, iSCSI later) and NAS functionality as well as sync and async replication, snapshots and thin provisioning. Nexsan’s fantastic AutoMAID technology is also employed, allowing users to balance between performance and energy savings.
This combination of Nexsan’s already-loved storage hardware with the ability to scale it out to petabytes and manage it centrally and keep it as energy-efficient as possible should be a winning formula and a much needed option in the marketplace.
The DATAbeast comes in neatly packaged “Ready To Go” packages in 25U and 42U racks w/ all arrays, controllers, software, switches and cabling needed so you can have the solution up and running in no time at all.
A few months back our friends at Exagrid released the aptly named “Exagrid Deduplication Gateway for iSCSI” and had closely aligned themselves with the market leader in iSCSI storage, EqualLogic.
A slight name tweak now knows this box as the Exagrid iSCSI Backup Gateway (Data Sheet) which has a nicer ring to it. Make no bones about it, these guys want tape GONE. And lets face it, tape is a pain in the ass neck.
Exagrid makes a pretty good case:
Eliminates failed backups and restores
Greatly reduces your backup window
Works with your existing backup app
Perfect for environments w/ 1-60TB backups
Compression and dedupe backups in one package
Optional WAN-efficient remote replication for DR
So, if you one of the 6000+ organizations that already have an EqualLogic SAN or are thinking of implementing one, this would be a great add-on to tie everything together from a backup perspective.
If you’d like to discuss this product or deduplication in general, please drop us a line.
At long last, and after much fanfare, VMware’s Site Recovery Manager (SRM) is finally here. Given the buzz around this product, we get a lot of folks asking “This is gonna be so great!….now, exactly what does SRM do?”
In a nutshell: SRM takes the hassle out of validating and testing your disaster recovery plan. DR plans have historically been complex and difficult to errect and test, often involving heroic levels of scripting and finger-crossing. SRM removes that and is honestly a quantum leap in simplifying this once daunting part of IT.
SRM ties into compatible replication engines from most leading vendors (EqualLogic, EMC, NetApp etc..) and allows you to create a “recovery image” that includes VM’s, storage and network connections at a remote location and to autonomously switch over to that image in the event of a disaster. It also allows you to segregate this environment, allowing you to freely test it to ensure your environment fails over correctly without fear of impacting production ops.
One thing to keep in mind: SRM does NOT replicate data. That duty is still the responsibility of the SAN, so make sure your storage platform has the requisite storage adapter for SRM. EqualLogic has a great SRM adapter and when coupled with their excellent replication engine, creates a bulletproof DR platform.
If you’d like to see a demo of VMware’s SRM and EqualLogic in action, simply let us know.
This video illustrates one of the big differentiators of Dell-EqualLogic’s PS Series iSCSI SAN arrays: simplicity.
The clip takes you from populating the hard drives in a chassis to setting up the SAN, creating a data volume and mounting it to a server. Its sped up in the interest of time but so is the stopwatch keeping time so its entirely accurate….as are the not-so-subtle digs at HP thruout. Warning: the music is annoying.
If you’d like to schedule a Dell-EqualLogic online demo like this just drop us a line.
The blogosphere has been alight these past months with discussions and rants about the “impending war” between iSCSI and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)…Who will win, what will it mean for the industry and where should customers put their IT budgets. Add to this Data Center Ethernet (DCE), Fibre Channel pushing 8GB and 10GB iSCSI moving into the limelight.
Having been doing this for a while I’ve seen this movie a few times…different actors, same plot. The way I see it, FCoE is going to be a waste of time and money for most folks…iSCSI is mainstream, performs well, has a massive ecosystem and with 10GB iSCSI hitting its stride in 08/09, I don’t see FCoE being a viable solution. Those that bought HD-DVD players in the last year will relate: if the protocol doesn’t have massive support and industry inertia it’ll be money wasted and you’ll need to migrate to Blu-Ray the winner sooner or later.
So, let the vendors hack it out in the quest to buy their CEO’s even bigger yachts. Our pick is iSCSI. Unless you’ve got a significant investment in FC infra that you’d like to stretch for another couple of years, from what we’ve seen iSCSI is the way to go. FCoE will wind up on clearance cart along w/ Titanic HD-DVDs.
RELDATA’s 9240 storage gateway is a very cool piece of data storage gear for a number of reasons that we think businesses will find attractive.
Typically, when you want to look at an enterprise-class storage solution you had a list of usual suspects: NetApp, EMC, Compellent, HP, EqualLogic etc…and they all do a bang-up job (some better than others quite frankly). But they all require you to buy the actual disks from them….at seemingly ludicrous prices. $1495 for a 750GB SATA Drive???
Like the $5000 toilet bowl seats the government has been buying for years, these high drive prices are one place where these companies pay for their R&D budgets…everyone knows the drives aren’t special. Its a $250 Seagate w/ maybe some firmware and a fancy drive sled but thats it.
RELDATA takes a different approach: sure they offer disk trays to back their 9240 storage gateways, but you don’t HAVE to buy them (altho they are a lot more budget-friendly than most). They are hardware-agnostic and extremely flexible: you can attach Fibre, SCSI or iSCSI disk from virtually anyone to the backend. You can even mix new storage with systems you currently own for investment protection and centralized management.
RELDATA then takes all this storage, virtualizes it and doles it out as iSCSI and/or NAS to your users and apps. And because we’re talking options here, they allow you to do it over Gigabit or 10Gigabit links. And its all bolstered by enterprise-class snapshot, remote replication and multi-path I/O features.
The savings in backend storage options, the ability to use existing disk and the flexibility to provision it out as block and file-level data is only the first half of the movie. Its also SCREAMING FAST. Each 9240 has dual Xeon CPU’s, up to 16GB DRAM and you can active-active cluster up to 32 of them. Simply put: you will never outgrow this solution, from either a performance or capacity standpoint.
Compellent is running on methanol these days folks (for non-car-guys: thats a good thing). Their solid technology and rich feature set are winning customers and industry accolades left and right.
Best SAN of 2008 - InfoWorld
Midrange SAN Quality Award 2008 - Diogenes Labs / Storage Magazine
Green 15 Award 2008 - InforWorld
Storage Product of the Year 07 Finalist - SearchStorage
Excellence Award 2007 - eWeek
Their Storage Center software platform and robust, flexible hardware are truly bringing their mantra “The only SAN so sophisticated its simple” to the masses with rave reviews. Their Remote Replication and Data Instant Replay (aka: Snapshots) features are among the best out there and are extremely easy to use.
The R&D groups at EMC, NetApp, Hitachi et al are no doubt burning the midnite oil to combat this relatively new and powerful threat to the midrange fibre world….oh and also they do iSCSi and NAS quite well thank you very much.
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