Dell Beefs Up Data Center Storage Lineup

Dell has launched new entry-level and enterprise data center storage offerings as well as a new integration with its software-defined solutions portfolio, using Microsoft Storage Spaces. The product releases span what Dell refers to as traditional and new IT architectures, piecing together the right storage solutions for the various workloads and strategies that the modern enterprise must address.

For small enterprises operating traditional IT workloads Dell has introduced the Dell Storage SCv2000 Series. The arrays contain several features that used to be included in the higher-end SC Series arrays only. Starting around $14,000 per array, Dell says, three models will be offered with expansion options.

The company expanded the PS Series Arrays line with new offerings in the PS6610 enterprise portfolio. Dell says the new arrays improve performance up to seven times, compared to the previous generation, and will scale out to 504TB per array. Catering to big data needs, the arrays can combine flash and hard drives and can perform with up to 98,000 IOPS random read performance, according to the company.

To help the enterprise save space with compression of snapshots and replicas, Dell introduced new EqualLogic PS Series Array Software 8.0 for virtual environments with many new features. Dell says the new series support virtual environments with advanced VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes integration that allows arrays to be managed on a virtual machine basis instead of per volume or LUN.

"The compression feature in EqualLogic PS Series Array Software 8 will have the biggest impact on our business,” said John Dembishack, senior systems engineer at Flagship Networks. “In our test environment, we saw an overall compression ratio of 41 percent, and as high as 50 percent on some individual volumes. This means huge savings on storage capacity and associated costs for our clients."

For Dell's Blue Thunder software defined storage initiative the company announced an integration of Dell Storage with Microsoft Spaces. After listening to what mutual Dell and Microsoft customers wanted, Dell says the new Scale-Out File Server (SOFS) solution will come in in five configurations and will support customers seeking an SDS and virtualized storage approach to various workloads.

Dell plans for a global general availability of this offering next month. The company hopes its Blue Thunder will be a common platform with a common management layer, and has worked with Nexenta, Nutanix, Red Hat, VMware and now Microsoft to evolve the SDS options.