Softcat Opts or Whiptail Flash Array

Softcat Ltd has selected WHIPTAIL Technologies, Inc. INVICTA silicon
storage array to power over 1,000 seats on its internal VDI, as well as the
scalable, performance storage backbone at the heart of the reseller’s managed
service offering.

Due to go live at the end of September at Softcat’s data center, the 36TB array
will increase the performance of its VDI service, benefiting thousands of
customers across the UK.

The WHIPTAIL INVICTA storage array will complement Softcat’s
incumbent capacity storage tier of 100% spinning disk and will fuel the VAR’s
managed service for VDI, database and other applications that require high
IO/s read and write throughput and minimized
latency.

Softcat selected WHIPTAIL after evaluating several other major
suppliers, including other all-flash vendors, but WHIPTAIL outperformed the
competition on performance tests and ease of scalability. As the VMware
reseller of the year experiences rapid and continual growth, these are all elements to its success.

"Softcat has been working
with WHIPTAIL since early 2011 on a number of in-house virtualization and VDI
projects for our customers, but it was time to practice what we preach – in
both senses of the word," said Sam Routledge, solutions director at
Softcat. "WHIPTAIL is very highly
regarded by our customers, as it makes truly high performance storage a reality
and for many, it has transformed the way their businesses operate. WHIPTAIL
de-risks VDI deployments by eradicating the most risky element of such a
project; poor performance, which inevitably leads to user dissatisfaction."

Simon Walker, managed services director at Softcat added: "Softcat has worked hard to build a
virtualization practice that is second to none; we are now looking to replicate
this success with our managed services team, and the deployment of WHIPTAIL is
a key element to this future success."

The INVICTA silicon storage array scales to 72TB and in
performance tests has achieved 650,000 read IO/s and 550,000 write IO/s, with
over 7GB bandwidth and <0.2ms latency. WHIPTAIL became the first to adopt MLC NAND flash and making it enterprise
ready. It offers a seven-year drive wear endurance guarantee, through
wear-leveling technology implemented within its RACE RUNNER OS, instilling
customer confidence when deploying flash storage.

Dave Johnson, channel manager at WHIPTAIL EMEA said: "Softcat is the leading WHIPTAIL reseller in
the UK and this project will help to propel our relationship further and
continue to build upon this success."

Brian Feller, VP and GM of WHIPTAIL EMEA concluded: "It is always a testament to our company and
our technology when we are trusted by world-class visionary companies such as
Softcat, not only to partner with them, but also to be adopted as a key element
of their managed service arm."