Dell Fluid Data Architecture Advancements Unify and Protect Storage From Start to Scale

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, July 5, 2012 – Dell today announced new solutions that continue to advance its Fluid Data architecture to help customers efficiently manage their data and protect business information.

The new advancements include updates to the Dell Fluid File System for a common, enterprise-class distributed file system across the company’s three primary storage solution families, a new Compellent platform that dynamically unifies block and file data, and a new entry-level Brocade 16GB Fibre Channel switch to support next-generation applications.“The Dell Fluid Data architecture is designed to manage the growth of our customers’ data, so they can manage the growth of their business,” said KT Ong, General Manager, Commercial Business, Dell Sales Malaysia. “We are delivering a new customer experience across a tightly integrated set of products and solutions with shared capabilities across our portfolio – driving up optimization, driving out the cost of forced end of life, and driving forward the speed and flexibility required by IT.”

Fluid File System Spans Compellent, EqualLogic and PowerVault

Following the introduction of the Dell Fluid File System in 2011, the company today unveiled the latest release of the Fluid File System with the new Dell Compellent FS8600 NAS. The integration of the Dell Fluid File System within the Compellent architecture represents the final step in offering customers file capabilities across each of Dell’s primary storage platforms – Compellent, EqualLogic and PowerVault. This provides customers with a common, enterprise-class distributed file system featuring snapshots, replication and built-in data protection features, and the ability to manage file and block information on a single enterprise storage platform.

SAN and NAS Scale on a Single Compellent Platform

The next generation Compellent array, comprised of the SC8000 and FS8600, is designed to lower the total cost of ownership by managing a virtualized, scalable pool of disks to expand up and out across block and file data without forklift upgrades. The new array includes new 2U, 6GB SAS enclosures that provide 12 3.5” or 24 2.5” disk drives per enclosure.

The Dell Compellent SC8000 is based on the latest 64-bit Compellent Storage Center 6.0 operating system and 12 generations of Dell design experience for a resilient platform that scales to meet business and data growth.

As a single platform for both block and file data, the SC8000 helps eliminate the costs and complexity of supporting separate solutions. Additional savings may be achieved through SC8000 advancements that enable greater energy efficiency as well as the ability to operate at higher temperatures, supporting fresh air initiatives.

The SC8000 builds on the existing SC40 Compellent architecture that gives customers 99.999 percent availability(1) across 26 million hours of continuous operation. The new unified solution allows businesses to grow with a reliable storage environment that provides greater agility for customers to expand their business and existing storage environment simultaneously.

The Dell Compellent FS8600 delivers high-performance, scale-out file storage that integrates with Dell Compellent automated tiering to enable efficient SAN and NAS within a single solution. This helps provide high performance and a low total cost of ownership across a single, scalable platform. The new Compellent unified solution helps manage data growth and control costs by seamlessly scaling up to one petabyte of automated tiered storage capacity within a single namespace.

The FS8600 is available in two options that support 8GB Fibre Channel connections and a choice of 1GbE or 10GbE connectivity to the client network. The new Compellent solutions are protected by the award-winning Copilot support team, which maintains a more than 96 percent customer satisfaction rating.(2)

Fluid File System Added to Updated EqualLogic and PowerVault

Dell also introduced the second generation of EqualLogic and PowerVault NAS solutions featuring Dell’s Fluid File System – the EqualLogic FS7600 and FS7610 and the PowerVault NX3600 and NX3610.

The FS7600 (1GbE) and FS7610 (10GbE) systems integrate with new or existing EqualLogic PS Series arrays to deliver scale-out unified storage for 1GbE and 10GbE environments. File and block storage, including new support for asynchronous replication, are managed through the EqualLogic Group Manager and can scale to 509TB within a single namespace.

The PowerVault NX3600 (1GbE) and NX3610 (10GbE) are second generation PowerVault NAS and unified storage systems that offer new support for 10GbE SAN connectivity and expand the capabilities of the earlier NX3500. As with the NX3500, this NAS platform manages the file workload with files and file metadata stored on MD iSCSI arrays, leveraging a single pool of disk capacity for block and file data. One PowerVault NX3600 system can scale to 576TB raw capacity. A dual-NX3610 solution can scale across two appliances to support up to 1PB capacity within a single namespace.

New Brocade 16GB Fibre Channel Switch

Dell is introducing the Dell Brocade 6505, a new entry-level 16GB Fibre Channel switch to complement the mid-range Brocade 6510 and the Brocade 8510 SAN backbone. Certified for Dell Compellent arrays, the series helps simplify 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.

By combining the Dell Fluid Data architecture with Brocade's 16GB Fibre Channel infrastructure, Dell Compellent customers can help improve the flexibility, reliability and simplicity of their SAN environments to support next-generation applications and services within highly-virtualized, cloud-optimized environments.

Availability:
• The Dell Compellent FS8600, EqualLogic FS7600 and FS7610, and PowerVault NX3600 and NX3610 will be available in the coming months.
• The Dell Compellent SC8000 will be available worldwide this month.
• The Brocade 6505 will be available globally this month.