New storage solutions and extended analytics from Dell

• Dell Compellent Storage Center 6.4 array software unlocks potential of automated tiering
• Broadening Hadoop capabilities to enable customers to take advantage of Intel’s distribution

DELL has announced new storage solutions and expanded analytics capabilities that it claimed were designed to help businesses improve their IT performance, support data insights and reduce overall costs.
 
As businesses work to keep pace with massive data growth, many also are turning to IT systems optimised for performance- and data-intensive workloads like those required to analyse customer and business data for insights that help achieve their goals, the company said in a statement.
 
Analyst firm IDC projects the worldwide big data technology and services market will grow at a 31.7% compound annual growth rate with revenues reaching US$23.8 billion by 2016.
 
Infrastructure technology for big data deployments is expected to grow the fastest with the storage segment expected to increase at the highest rate, at 53.4%, Dell said, citing IDC’s ‘Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services 2012-2016 Forecast’ from December, 2012.
 
“While businesses continue to look to drive cost and complexity out of their data centres, they also are charged with finding flexible IT solutions that provide the optimal performance for the many kinds of workloads and applications they manage,” said K.T. Ong, general manager of Commercial Business at Dell Malaysia.
 
He said that Dell has an end-to-end data centre approach that “provides open, scalable, integrated and automated solutions designed to simplify and generate the most value out of an IT investment.”
 
“With today’s portfolio updates, Dell builds on our innovative storage capabilities while allowing customers to pack more storage in significantly less space and benefit from optimised performance for the most demanding environments,” Ong added.
 
The company announced Dell Compellent Storage Center 6.4 array software, which it claimed unlocks the potential of automated tiering and ties together new Compellent offerings:

• The Dell Compellent Flash Optimised Solution offers the industry’s first storage solution in its class with intelligent data placement across multiple types of flash technologies or in combination with traditional drives. It can reduce storage costs by up to 75% compared to other flash solutions, and supports high performance and data-intensive workloads with full enterprise-class features, Dell claimed.

• The Dell Compellent SC280 offers the best rack unit density of any major storage solution with up to 2.8 times more capacity than competing 2U enclosures. This capacity-optimised solution for hosting tiered data can store up to 336 terabytes in a 5U footprint while significantly reducing data centre space requirements.

• Dell Fluid File System (FluidFS) v3 offers customers enterprise-class file storage featuring improved performance at one-third the cost of the market leader, helping customers better accommodate performance-intense file workloads. Available first on the Dell Compellent FS8600 later this year, FluidFS v3 can support two petabytes in a single namespace and offer customers the best rack density among major vendors in its class.

The company said it was also broadening its Hadoop capabilities, which would include enabling customers to take advantage of Intel’s Distribution of Apache Hadoop (IDH).
 
Dell said it was currently testing a solution based on IDH with customers, which will focus on performance and security, and offer customers choice for solutions to harness the value of big data.
 
Dell Crowbar currently includes integration to Hadoop and will integrate with IDH when Dell launches an IDH-based solution this year.
 
The new Dell Compellent Storage Center 6.4, Flash Optimised Solution and SC280 enclosure are planned to be available by the third quarter of this year; while Dell Fluid File System v3 should be available early in the fourth quarter.
 
 
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