Storage Roundup: Nimbus, SGI, EMC

Here’s a roundup of some of some of this week’s headlines from the storage industry:

Nimbus announces E-Class Flash Memory.  Nimbus Data unveiled the new E-Class Flash Memory System, which it said ws the industry’s first fully-redundant multiprotocol solid state storage system.  Built for applications such as enterprise-wide server virtualization, Web infrastructure, and database clusters the E-Class platform contains no single point of failures. The E-Class platform consists of a pair of redundant controllers and up to 24 solid state storage enclosures. New features supports 500 terabytes as one logical pool, consumes as little as 5 watts per terabyte, and has comprehensive data management software and “unified” storage without any licensing fees. "The Nimbus E-Class sets a new standard for solid state storage scalability and operating cost economics,” said Benjamin  Woo, program vice president, worldwide storage systems at IDC. “Large enterprises and cloud providers must consider the significant infrastructure consolidation possible with all-flash storage systems. By providing both innovative hardware and comprehensive software, Nimbus is well-positioned to not only capitalize on the need for high-performance systems but also the significantly greater trend towards primary storage based exclusively on solid state technology.” The Nimbus E-Class is available immediately.

SGI introduces modular InfiniteStorage Platform. SGI announced the introduction of SGI Modular InfiniteStorage, an integrated server and storage platform designed to provide cloud and data storage customers with the maximum flexibility for compute and data management applications. To meet diverse data environments the new platform will be available as either SGI Modular InfiniteStorage Server (SGI MIS Server) or SGI Modular InfiniteStorage JBOD (SGI MIS JBOD) products. When built into SGI's D-Rack cabinet configuration, up to 2.37 petabytes of capacity and up to forty discrete processors can be supplied within a single standard 19 inch rack footprint. "The SGI Modular InfiniteStorage platform is designed to couple very dense storage and compute capabilities in an adaptable platform, to give cloud and other storage IT customers important new choices for tuning and growing the system to meet their specific requirements," said Steve Conway, IDC research vice president for HPC. "The SGI Modular InfiniteStorage platform aims to allow IT managers to design customized solutions based on standards-based components." Both storage products are available for preorder now from SGI.

EMC Isilon scale-out NAS with Hadoop support.  EMC announced that EMC Isilon scale-out NAS with HDFS, combined with EMC Greenplum HD, is an enterprise-ready solution with native support for Hadoop. EMC Isilon's OneFS 6.5 operating system natively integrates the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) protocol and delivers the industry's first and only enterprise-proven Hadoop solution on a scale-out NAS architecture. As a single vendor solution it leverages end-to-end data protection including Snapshots, Replication and Backup for Hadoop Big Data. "Hadoop will be a game-changer in unstructured data analytics once enterprise customers are convinced that adoption can simplify their infrastructure and architecture without compromising data security or management capabilities," said Sam Grocott, vice president of marketing at EMC Isilon. "We've taken the guesswork out of Hadoop deployment by bringing together the strengths of Isilon's enterprise scale-out NAS storage systems with the Hadoop ecosystem. With EMC Isilon, enterprises now have the type of archiving, replication and management capabilities their businesses rely on combined with the innovative analytics of EMC Greenplum and the training, services and support of EMC to make the most of their Hadoop deployments."