Dell Updates Enterprise Storage Portfolio

At its second EMEA Dell Storage Forum customer and partner event, Dell Inc. unveiled a series of end-to-end storage portfolio updates designed to advance the Fluid Data architecture and to help customers further optimize data at every point in its lifecycle.

"The nature of IT and what a data center should do for an organization is changing rapidly as customers face multiple and often competing models of how technology is delivered – from client to cloud to converged," said Darren Thomas, VP and GM, Dell Storage. "Dell is best positioned with an end-to-end storage architecture that can optimize data at every point in its lifecycle through intelligence and automation. Dell’s Fluid Data Architecture enables new capabilities that power the data center, so customers can drive real business results."

Compellent and PowerVault MD3 Software
Increases Performance and Automation
Compellent Storage Center 6.3 array software unveiled offers enhanced scalability and performance for Compellent arrays. Compellent SC8000 controllers with Storage Center 6.3 software can increase performance up to 100% over previous versions when running enterprise workloads (Source: Dell testing performed on dual SC8000 controllers running OLTP workloads using IOmeter with a 100% random 70/30 read/write mix and 4K sector transfer sizes. Testing using pre-release Storage Center code version 6.3.1 versus 6.1.2 code.) Additionally, with this release, Dell is the first storage provider to announce end-to-end 16Gb FC capability – from server to switch to storage – doubling bandwidth and speeding access to business critical applications and data.

Designed for medium to large enterprises and cloud computing, Compellent arrays offer best in class automated tiering, advanced data protection and superior ease of use. These features combine with a highly scalable, modular design that enables users to update storage software at no additional cost and easily expand without requiring a ‘rip and replace’ of their existing infrastructure. According to a new IDC White Paper, commissioned by Dell, Compellent installations had almost twice as long a productive life span than non-Dell storage solutions with organizations replacing Compellent every 6.9 years compared to 3.5 years for their other storage environments (Source: "The Business Value of Dell EqualLogic and Compellent Primary Storage Solutions," an October 2012 IDC white paper commissioned by Dell.)

Additional enterprise enhancements
from Storage Center 6.3 include:

Synchronous replication enhancements that can improve resiliency for data recovery and provide multi-site replication flexibility designed to reduce recovery time and recovery point objectives;
Expanded Microsoft integration with new Windows Server 2012 support;
Enhanced security and reduced administration time with Active Directory and LDAP support that automates and integrates Compellent storage with a corporate directory to enable a single authentication and authorization process for granting access;
Improved federal government security by supporting USGv6/IPv6 requirements for a range of available IP addresses; and,
Ability to intelligently alert and recommend placement of volumes across multiple arrays based on proactive performance and capacity monitoring.

New PowerVault MD3 software enhancements offer enhanced data protection, performance, capacity and virtualization capabilities while designed to maintain up to 99.999% availability for these arrays.

Data protection enhancements include dynamic disk pools that simplify disk management and improve rebuild performance by distributing data across all drives, decreasing recovery time of drive failures. In addition to current FC replication capabilities, new IP-based remote asynchronous replication protects against site failures, improves application speeds, and increases distance support.

New PowerVault MD3 software application integration and efficiency capabilities include VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) support, which allows customers to offload certain storage related tasks from the server to PowerVault arrays. New thin provisioning capabilities enable arrays to automatically allocate storage as needed for simplified and cost-effective expansion of capacity.

Dell Boosts Data Protection Portfolio
Simplify Backup and Recovery
Dell’s growing data protection portfolio enables customers of all sizes to attain data and application protection and recovery capability times for virtual, physical and cloud environments. Dell provides complete backup, replication and recovery solutions designed to maximize data efficiency, improve IT agility and help ensure business resiliency.

Additions to data protection portfolio include:

PowerVault DL4000 – Optimized for SMBs and remote offices, the first backup appliance based on Dell AppAssure software provides a fast and complete backup and DR solution for business-critical applications and data with integration of software and system management. With 5.5TB of internal storage capacity, this 1U appliance offers snapshot, replication, de-duplication and compression software for efficient use of backup capacity. Users can benefit from hosting two virtual standby machines that protect critical applications for up to two servers, offering quick DR.
Quest NetVault Backup 9.0 – New data protection software integrates with NetVault Extended Architecture (NetVault XA), featuring a new graphical user interface and a set of shared services to unite multiple Quest data protection technologies for simpler management. The software enables mid- to large-sized organizations to simplify data protection while protecting critical applications in physical and virtual heterogeneous environments. NetVault’s cross-platform capabilities are expanded to Windows Server 2012 and Novell Open Enterprise Server 11, while Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and vSphere enhancements offer improved functionality, performance and scalability. The addition of native replication to the NetVault SmartDisk deduplication solution helps streamline offsite data storage and DR.
PowerVault DL2300 – New enterprise data protection appliance combines PowerEdge 12th generation servers with CommVault Systems, Inc.‘s Simpana 9 data protection software to offer large enterprises with backup, recovery, replication, archiving and de-duplication for both physical and virtual servers in one easy-to-set-up, pre-tested solution. The new appliance incorporates latest generation processor and memory capabilities to optimize de-duplication database configurations for higher backup performance. Users can save administrative time with built-in, policy-based automation for managing backup and archiving.

"Dell Compellent storage plays a critical role in our IT infrastructure, and we continue to look forward to new enhancements and features that help us meet enterprise level storage demands," said Dan Marbes, lead systems engineer, Associated Bank, N.A. "The opportunity to gain up to two times the performance when running our applications means faster access to important information when our users need it. We are also eagerly anticipating the integration of Active Directory authentication to more efficiently manage access to these resources."

"We’ve relied on AppAssure for recovery and peace of mind for years on a variety of storage platforms," said Michael Rapp, information security officer, Center for Information Technology in Education, College of Education, University of Houston. "Dell’s integration of this data protection software into a purpose-built platform could make it even easier for customers to deploy an AppAssure-optimized solution with a minimal amount of set up and configuration work."

Availability:

Compellent Storage Center 6.3 has planned availability for beta in early 2013 and general availability in Q2 2013.
PowerVault MD3 software enhancements and Dell PowerVault DL2300 are now available.
Quest NetVault Backup 9.0 has planned availability in December 2012.
PowerVault DL4000 has planned availability in Q1 2013.