Dell EMC Updates Unity and SC Series Mid-Range Storage Arrays

Building on its commitment of continued investment in its mid-range storage solutions, Dell EMC, part of Dell Technologies, announced software OS updates to Unity and SC Series, giving customers features designed to extend the performance, functionality and longevity of their product investments.

As part of the software built into both Unity and SC Series All-flash and hybrid storage arrays, customers can upgrade their OS non-disruptively and at no cost (for customers with active ProSupport agreements) to improve workload performance, storage capacity and data protection and availability.

“We brought together the best engineers in the industry to accelerate our innovation in storage and have delivered major updates and significant new features to our midrange portfolio, demonstrating the power of what we can do together to delight our customers,” said Jeff Boudreau, president, Dell EMC Storage. “With this release, we’re continuing our relentless innovation in Dell EMC Unity and SC Series by delivering huge performance improvements, easier management, better security and greater efficiencies. We’re helping our customers modernize their data centers and solve their top business challenges.“

Unity OE features
With more than one exabyte of raw flash storage capacity shipped since its debut just over two years ago ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾, Unity has become the benchmark mid-range storage solution. It is designed to deliver simplicity and value, enabling organizations to speed deployment, streamline management and tier unified storage workloads to the cloud.

The Unity operating environment gains the following replication, data mobility and security features
to ensure uninterrupted operations of applications that support the business:

Array-based file replication

• Metrosync array-based file replication protects transactional file applications with rapid recovery and automated failover to a secondary data center

• Two-Way NDMP improves performance for better NAS backup times while reducing WAN/LAN network congestion

Data mobility

• Built-in data mobility capabilities to migrate block data from third-party storage arrays directly to Unity

Security enhancements

• LDAP/AD enhancements for performance, availability, and search flexibility for Microsoft environments

The addition of Metrosync for file delivers a complete complement of array-based replication, with synchronous and asynchronous block and file replication options now included with every Unity hybrid and All-Flash configuration. These replication options combine to improve transactional application data RPO and RTO, long distance DR, and data aggregation and distribution.

SC Series gains performance, capacity and HTML5 UI
For the past several quarters, the company’s engineers have embarked on a top-to-bottom code optimization of SCOS to extract higher performance and efficiency from SC Series hybrid and all-flash arrays, while also improving management, analytics and monitoring.

SCOS 7.3 features include:

• Major IO/s performance boost

  • • Up to 2.2 million maximum IO/s per array, over 20 million in federated multi-array environments ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾

    • 2X increase in maximum IO/s across every current SC array model ^(iv)

    • 50,000-100,000 more mixed-workload IO/s across every SC array ^(v)

• Improved management for single and multi-array environments

  • • Unisphere for SC HTML5 Web UI simplifies and automates common storage management tasks; shares common look and feel with Unisphere for Unity

• Easier, more cost-effective upgrades and expansion

  • • Up to 2X increase in maximum capacity per array ^(vi)

    • Data-in-place upgrades for the SC4020 offers cost-effective option for customers to migrate data to newer SC models

    • SCv2000 can federate/replicate with other SC Series arrays

• More enterprise efficiency and availability

  • • Support for 100Gb and 25Gb iSCSI network hardware offers customers future-proof solutions and buying assurance

    • Distributed sparing, for greater I/O efficiency and up to 500% faster rebuilds ^(vii)

    • Live Volume enhancements designed to deliver lower latency and reduced network traffic in HA environments

By upgrading to the SCOS 7.3, SC Series customers can gain an overnight boost in workload performance. Three SC array models now provide over one million IOPs ^(viii). The company’s tests show real-world applications such as VDI and SQL OLTP can perform 33% to 54%x faster with SCOS 7.3.

Unity OE 4.4 and SC Series SCOS 7.3 are available as no-cost software upgrades for customers with an active Dell ProSupport agreement.

Resources:
Blog: New Software Update to Dell EMC Unity Blends Midrange Vision with Innovative Enterprise Features

Blog: Boost Performance and Capacity of SC Series Storage with Free SCOS Upgrade

Blog: Storage Center OS 7.3 Brings Big Performance Boost to SC Series Arrays
IDC white paper: Midrange Customers Demand High-End Functionality at Affordable Prices

Video: Introducing SCOS 7.3: Dell EMC’s SC Series flash arrays just got 2X faster!

(i) Based on Dell internal sales data May 2016-April 2018
(ii) Based on internal tests performed in February, 2018 comparing SC9000 running 7.3 vs. 7.2 firmware on 100% sequential reads with 4K sector transfer size. Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.
(iii) Based on internal tests performed in February, 2018 on SC9000, SC7020, SC5020 and SCv3020 arrays running 7.3 vs. 7.2 firmware on 100% sequential reads with 4K sector transfer size. Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.
(iv) Based on internal tests performed in February, 2018 on SC9000, SC7020, SC5020 and SCv3020 arrays comparing 7.3 vs. 7.2 firmware running 70% reads, 30% writes with 4K sector transfer size. Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.
(v) Based on internal tests performed in February, 2018 on SC9000, SC7020 and SC5020 arrays running 7.3 vs. 72 firmware.
(vi) Based on internal tests performed by Dell EMC on SCv3000 array with and without distributed sparing mode active. Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.
(vii) Based on internal tests performed in February, 2018 on SC9000, SC7020 and SC5020 arrays running 100% sequential reads with 4K sector transfer size.  Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.
(viii) Based on internal tests performed by Dell EMC on an SC9000 with 7.3 vs. 7.2 firmware.  Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.
(ix) Based on internal tests performed by Dell EMC on an SC9000 with 7.3 vs. 7.2 firmware. Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.
(x) Based on internal tests performed by Dell EMC in February 2018 running TPC-E like workloads (95% reads, 8K sector transfer size) on an SC9000 with 7.3 vs 7.2 firmware. Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.