Storage News: Quantum, Violin Memory, Tegile Systems

Quantum boosts storage performance with the introduction of two new StorNext appliances, Violin Memory helps SCOR Global Life dramatically accelerate in-house applications, and Tegile Systems propels an Irish airline's internal infrastructure.

Quantum launches new StorNext appliances. Quantum (QTM) announced it has expanded its StorNext platform with two new StorNext 5 metadata appliances.  The new StorNext M445 SSD leverages flash technology to maximize the benefits of StorNext 5. The StorNext M445 SSD significantly raises the performance bar with a 7x boost in metadata operations. A second new metadata appliance, the StorNext M660XL, offers greater capacity and scale with support for up to 5 billion files, 100 percent compatibility with Apple Xsan, and fully integrated scale-out IP connectivity for Windows and Linux workstations. Additionally, StorNext 5 is now available to existing StorNext appliance users, enabling greater efficiencies in their media workflows. "The new StorNext 5 appliances truly unleash the potential of StorNext 5 for broadcasters and post production professionals and are ready to meet their toughest workflow challenges," said Alex Grossman, vice president, Media and Entertainment at Quantum. "With more than two years of development in modernizing every component of StorNext to take advantage of the newest system architectures and technologies -- beginning with flash metadata storage -- the results are stunning and deliver dramatically new levels of performance and scalability. We are excited to see what our customers will create on the StorNext 5 optimized appliance platform."

SCOR Global Life selects Violin Memory. Violin Memory (VMEM) announced that it has been selected by SCOR Global Life USA Reinsurance Company to accelerate its in-house Windows Server and SQL server-based applications. A 6000 Series Memory Array enabled the company to increase server performance by an average of four times, improve staff productivity, as well as provide timely year-end reports to reduce financial risk and meet compliance regulations. Reports that once required six full days using hard disk drives took SCOR Global Life only one day to complete with the Violin solution. With an acquisition looming and applications experiencing high disk latency, SCOR processes needed to be accelerated to meet the compliance regulations of the accounting department. “We knew of the performance and latency benefits of flash memory and that Violin led the market with its arrays, yet the results exceeded our expectations,” said Greg Clinton, vice president of IT at SCOR Global Life. “We received exceptional and prompt customer service and were treated like a true partner. We didn’t feel like we were just a number in the system.”  To expedite the deployment of the Violin flash memory array, the account team at Violin shipped the array overnight and installed it the following morning.

Tegile selected by Ireland's National airline. Flash-driven storage provider Tegile Systems announced that Irish airline Aer Lingus has implemented its Zebi HA2800 arrays to revamp its internal infrastructure and provide the bandwidth necessary to better support end-user needs. Unable to scale at the speed necessary to cope with projects such as SQL databases, data warehousing and VDI deployment with its existing EMC storage, Aer Lingus looked to alleviate its problems by assessing other solutions available on the market.  After conducting evaluations with various storage companies such as Apache and HP, the airline chose to supplement its EMC solution with Tegile based on the high performance and cost effectiveness of its Zebi arrays. “With the legacy EMC storage, as soon as we reached our storage limit, we had to go back to the vendor to buy additional storage space,” said Brian Price, IT Architect at Aer Lingus. “This was both costly and an inefficient use of our IT team’s time.  With the implementation of Tegile arrays, storage is no longer an issue at Aer Lingus.  The deployment has given us more bang for our buck and allowed a lot more breathing space for our IT team.  Tegile arrays offer storage that is rich with features to enhance data management.”