Dell unveils new ‘Fluid Data’ solutions

• End-to-end storage portfolio updates designed to advance the Fluid Data architecture
• New Storage Center 6.3 software can boost controller performance by up to 100%

DELL has unveiled a series of end-to-end storage portfolio updates designed to advance the Fluid Data architecture and to help customers further optimize data at every point in its lifecycle.
 
“The nature of IT and what a data center should do for an organization is changing rapidly as customers face multiple and often competing models of how technology is delivered — from client to cloud to converged,” said K.T. Ong, general manager, Commercial Business, Dell Sales Malaysia.
 
“Dell’s Fluid Data Architecture enables new capabilities that power the data center, so customers can drive real business results,” he claimed.
 
The Dell Compellent Storage Center 6.3 array software offers enhanced scalability and performance for Dell Compellent arrays.
 
Compellent SC8000 controllers with Storage Center 6.3 software can increase performance up to 100% over previous versions when running enterprise workloads, the company claimed.
 
Additionally, with this release, Dell is the first storage provider to announce end-to-end 16Gb Fibre Channel capability — from server to switch to storage — doubling bandwidth and speeding access to business critical applications and data.
 
Designed for medium to large enterprises and cloud computing, Dell Compellent arrays offer automated tiering, advanced data protection and superior ease of use. These features combine with a highly scalable, modular design that enables users to update storage software at no additional cost and easily expand without requiring a “rip and replace” of their existing infrastructure, Dell said.
 
Meanwhile, new Dell PowerVault MD3 software enhancements offer enhanced data protection, performance, capacity and virtualization capabilities while designed to maintain up to 99.999% availability.
 
Data protection enhancements include dynamic disk pools that simplify disk management and improve rebuild performance by distributing data across all drives, decreasing significant recovery time of drive failures.
 
In addition to current Fiber Channel replication capabilities, new IP-based remote asynchronous replication protects against site failures, improves application speeds, and increases distance support.
 
Additions to the Dell data protection portfolio include:

• Dell PowerVault DL4000 (pic) — Optimized for small to medium enterprises and remote offices, the first backup appliance based on Dell AppAssure software provides a fast and complete backup and disaster recovery solution for business-critical applications and data with seamless integration of software and system management.

• Quest NetVault Backup 9.0 — New Quest data protection software integrates with NetVault Extended Architecture (NetVault XA), featuring a new graphical user interface and a set of shared services to unite multiple Quest data protection technologies for simpler management.

• Dell PowerVault DL2300 — New enterprise-class data protection appliance combines Dell PowerEdge 12th generation servers with CommVault Simpana 9 modern data protection software to offer large enterprises with data backup, recovery, replication, archiving and de-duplication for both physical and virtual servers in one easy-to-set-up, pre-tested solution.

Dell Compellent Storage Center 6.3 has planned availability for beta in early 2013 and general availability in Q2 2013.
 
Dell PowerVault MD3 software enhancements and Dell PowerVault DL2300 are now available.
 
Dell Quest NetVault Backup 9.0 has planned availability in the coming months, while the Dell PowerVault DL4000 has planned availability in Q1 2013.