First Dell Own De-Dupe D2D Appliance: DR4000

At its first Dell Storage Forum event in Europe, Dell Inc. announced advancements in its Fluid Data architecture that enable customers to adapt to the changing demands of their organizations and increase automation for management of their primary, backup and archive data.

The Fluid Data architecture, designed to enable customers to manage more information more effectively, is strengthened with new offerings that include:

• Dell’s first deduplication backup appliance that integrates intellectual property from the Ocarina acquisition;
• a software release for Compellent storage arrays; a new storage optimization solution for Microsoft SharePoint; and
• broader support for Dell Force10, PowerConnect and Brocade storage networking solutions.

"Today’s IT organizations are moving faster than ever down a road that is constantly changing. That’s why their data needs to be as dynamic as their business," said Darren Thomas, vice president and general manager, Dell Enterprise Storage. "With Dell’s new primary, archive and backup storage solutions, the Dell Fluid Data architecture delivers the storage intelligence customers need to deal with a sea of constant IT change without driving up costs, wasting time or continually replacing infrastructure."

Dell DR4000 Storage Platform
with Deduplication and Compression

Customers continue to augment or replace traditional backup and recovery environments with disk-based solutions for their speed, access and reliability.

The DR4000 combines the performance and reliability of disk-based backup with deduplication and compression capabilities from Dell’s Ocarina Networks acquisition. These capabilities eliminate multiple copies of the same data and enable customers to keep more data online longer and readily available in the event of a disaster or data loss.

By keeping data online for weeks or even months before moving it to archive storage, customers can easily locate and restore important data, creating new efficiencies and helping to reduce the TCO for their storage infrastructure.

DR4000 is for SMBs and remote offices
of large enterprises in need
of a disk-based backup solution that can:

• Eliminate redundant copies of data by decreasing disk capacity requirements up to 15 times;
• Reduce dependence on tape backup;
• Reduce bandwidth requirements for data transfer by up to 15 times;
• Reduce backup storage costs to as low as $0.25/GB list pricing; and
• Reduce the footprint of backup delivering power and cooling savings in the datacenter.

The DR4000, available in 40TB, 81TB or 135TB effective storage capacities in a single appliance, features inline deduplication and compression, deduplicated replication, advanced data protection, and non-disruptive deployment, certified with leading backup software applications.

In addition to data reduction capabilities, the DR4000 can reduce storage costs over time through an all-inclusive software licensing model that allows customers to leverage current and future product capabilities of the DR4000 without incurring additional licensing costs.

Dell Compellent Storage Center 6.0
The Compellent Storage Center 6.0 software includes new 64-bit support that doubles memory size to improve performance and scale. With its advanced tiering, thin provisioning and replication features, the modular design of the Dell Compellent SAN enables data centers to improve cost savings by upgrading to the new firmware and implement future product releases without requiring a rip-and-replace process. The new Dell Compellent firmware enables customers to take advantage of future Compellent software advancements while improving performance with existing solutions.

Storage Center 6.0 also expands Dell and VMware’s long-standing integration and engineering collaboration to help customers accelerate their move to dynamic data centers and cloud computing environments. Together, Dell and VMware provide the core framework for a virtualized data center and storage solutions that meet joint customer needs.

Extending its existing Dell EqualLogic
and PowerVault application integration
for VMware vSphere 5, Dell introduced
new VMware specific enhancements
for Dell Compellent storage customers including:

• Compellent VMware vSphere Storage APIs for Array Integration offers full copy offload and hardware-assisted locking features that extend Compellent’s existing support for block zeroing. These features speed deployment of virtual machines up to 40 percent faster (With VAAI enabled versus disabled. Analysis based on 2011 Dell Compellent testing of Storage Center 6.0 and Series40, comparing Copy Offload primitive enabled and disabled.), free up network and hosting resources and can improve storage performance for data volumes shared by multiple virtual machines.
• Compellent Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) for Site Recovery Manager 5 is available for download with support for new SRM 5 features such as automated failback from a disaster and new work flows for planned migration and downtime. Dell Compellent continues its OEM relationship with VMware for SRM 5, allowing all disaster recovery hardware and software support to be provided by the Dell Compellent Copilot support organization.
• Compellent vSphere 5 Client Plug-In and Enterprise Manager-vSphere 5 Integration allows VMware software users to efficiently manage Compellent virtualized pools of storage resources from either the VMware vSphere 5 or Compellent Enterprise Manager console, giving the ability to reduce administration time.

New Dell Solution
for Microsoft SharePoint Infrastructure Optimization
Dell also announced a solution to help customers optimize their Microsoft SharePoint infrastructure through improved data and storage management. The New Dell Solution for Microsoft SharePoint Infrastructure Optimization consists of Dell DX storage, Dell Microsoft SharePoint assessment, design, and deployment services and AvePoint DocAve software. The offering delivers  integrated solutions for SharePoint lifecycle management and migration, resulting in improved capacity utilization, performance, business continuity and compliance.

The Dell solution addresses
three sets of customer challenges:

• Proactive capacity planning and management, to drive better storage efficiency and up to 40 percent faster application performance
• Business continuity to ensure consistent backups of the entire SharePoint infrastructure improving backup up to 29 times and recovery times up to 32 times; and
• Flexible and scalable data governance through automated archiving.

Expanded Support for Dell Force10,
Dell PowerConnect
and Brocade Storage Networking Solutions
Dell is focused on speeding storage deployment, increasing performance and simplifying administration through improved interoperability with Dell Force10 and Dell PowerConnect Ethernet solutions and Brocade 16Gb Fibre Channel switches.

Providing more choice to EqualLogic users, Dell has added the Dell Force10 S4810 10Gb Ethernet switch and the deep-buffer S60 1Gb/10Gb Ethernet switches to the validated component list. EqualLogic customers can also reduce deployment time with auto-recognition and auto-configuration features delivered in select Dell PowerConnect switches.

To help automate Compellent array implementations, the Dell PowerConnect 8024 10Gb switches and M8024-k Blade IO modules provide technology that can reduce multi-step switch configuration to a single command.

By combining the Dell Fluid Data architecture with Brocade’s 16Gb Fibre Channel infrastructure, Dell Compellent customers can realize flexibility, reliability and simplicity for their SAN environments to support next-generation applications and services within highly-virtualized, cloud-optimized environments. The Brocade DCX 8510 is a SAN backbone that simplifies scale-out network design to reduce network complexity, management, and costs, while helping maximize overall port density and space utilization through massive consolidation of legacy SANs. The Brocade 6510 switch provides price/performance value and enables ‘pay-as-you-grow’ scalability with 24 to 48 ports for on-demand flexibility. Both will be available from Dell this month and are certified for Compellent arrays.

"Dell is one of the unique companies to offer an end-to-end data center solution that can help customers transform IT from a rigid cost center to a flexible productivity center," said Scott Winslow, CEO, Winslow Technology Group, a Dell Premier PartnerDirect channel partner. "These new Dell storage solutions offer an open, flexible platform that provides customers with a foundation for painless future growth and complements Dell’s expanding server, networking and software portfolio."

"Dell continues to invest and focus on creating ‘better together’, integrated offerings underpinned by core Dell intellectual property," said Simon Robinson, storage research director, 451 Research. "With these recent product introductions and enhancements, Dell continues to build on its vision of a Fluid Data architecture. This strategy fits well with the broader Dell portfolio, and also opens a significant opportunity to expand its footprint within its own existing customer base and in the wider storage market. Dell is well placed to move more aggressively both upstream and downstream."

Availability:

• The DR4000 disk-based backup appliance with deduplication will be available in Q1.
• The Compellent Storage Center 6.0 software will be available in Q1.
• The Dell Infrastructure Optimization Solution for Microsoft SharePoint will be available in January in the U.S. and in EMEA later in Q1 2012.
• The Brocade 6510 and Brocade DCX 8510 data center switches will be available in January.
• The Dell Force10 S4810 10Gb Ethernet switch and the deep-buffer S60 1Gb/10Gb Ethernet switches for EqualLogic are currently available.
• The Dell PowerConnect 8024 10Gb switches and M8024-k Blade IO modules are currently available.