DDN With HDD/SSD Appliance SFA7700

DataDirect Networks, Inc. (DDN) announced the availability of its next-generation scale-out storage platform: the SFA7700 hybrid Flash storage appliance with SFX acceleration.

This modular, scale-out appliance brings performance to data-intensive applications such as computational simulation, government intelligence, media, web and big data analytics that require multi-dimensional storage performance and smart storage tiering combined with data center density for both structured and unstructured data.  

The SFA7700 is a redundant hybrid storage platform engineered for performance and capacity optimization of block- and file-based applications. The base system supports 60 flash and/or spinning disk drives in 4U of datacenter rack space, and is expandable to support up to 396 disks in 20U of rack space.

Leveraging SFA OS real-time, highly parallel storage operating systems, the DDN SFA7700 is engineered to deliver maximum storage performance extraction and is capable of achieving performance levels more than 700% greater than competing scale-out file storage platforms.

It is the first platform to feature DDN’s new Storage Fusion Xcelerator Flash tiering technology, a suite of storage acceleration tools that combine spinning and solid state disk technology with application awareness to intelligently accelerate block- and file-based data access and delivery while also minimizing the total cost of storage acquisition.

The SFA7700 is designed with a variety of DDN SFA software features that are engineered to minimize complexity and maximize efficiency of high-scale big data environments, including:

• New Storage Fusion Xcelerator (SFX) portfolio of flash acceleration tools:
• SFX Read: Read caching to accelerate frequently accessed data
• SFX Write: Accelerate writes while cost-reducing SSD protection
• SFX: Instant Commit: Automatic cache warming of recent writes
• SFX Context Commit: Application-driven intelligent data caching
• DirectMon: Enterprise management and monitoring product suite, which provides one pane of glass for ease of management  
• DirectProtect: A self-healing engine and data integrity protection suite
• ReACT: Real-time adaptive RAM cache management

With optional GRIDScaler and EXAScaler file storage technology from DDN, the SFA7700 is a modular scalable unit that cost-effectively scales file systems beyond 100GB/s while eliminating file storage hotspots with SFX Flash acceleration tools.
 
The DDN SFA7700 will be running live at SC12, the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis in Salt Lake City from November 12-15.

It will be available in early 2013 directly through DDN and via PartnerLink channel community.

"Our SFA7700 is in a class of its own as a Big Data building block," said Jeff Denworth, VP of Marketing, DDN. "It is the result of years of Big Data engineering and investment into resolving critical performance and efficiency challenges which continue to mount as data explodes across the enterprise. With an affordable entry point and the automated combination of spinning and solid state technology, the SFA7700 is the ideal Big Data platform for data-driven organizations that are faced with unpredictable scaling and performance requirements."

"DDN has extended its SFA technology to feature even greater levels of efficiency and modularity," said Henry Baltazar, senior analyst, 451 Research. "With appliance-level integration into DDN’s file storage technology and new automation with DDN’s cloud collaboration tools, the SFA7700 is an ideal foundation to DDN’s Big Data portfolio and will enable organizations to ingest, process, store and distribute data with simplicity and scalability."

"Our partners require highly differentiated application-focused solutions to better serve the needs of their data-driven customers," said Bill Cox, VP of WW Channel Sales, DDN. "With the release of the SFA7700, not only do our partners have the perfect opportunity to address a broader class of their customer’s challenges, they also have the ability to provide solutions based on modularity and simplicity. We believe that the SFA7700 gives our Worldwide PartnerLink partners a substantial competitive advantage and a formidable opportunity to grow their businesses with DDN technology."