A new range designed to meet the expectations of the storage market
With the exponential increase in the volume of data and its criticality, dynamic and virtualised management of these volumes has today become a priority for SMEs as well as corporations.
In order to implement efficient and flexible storage, NEC is offering organisations its new SAN storage solution: the M Series range.
This new M Series range was designed with 2 priority objectives:
· To maximise data integrity and availability for better continuity of service, and
· To reduce the acquisition and operating costs, to make savings
To do this, NEC used and developed innovative technologies focusing on the following 4 major areas:
· Offering a flexible and scalable range with advanced functionalities even from the entry-level version
· Providing a very high level of performance and availability
· Facilitating implementation and administration, particularly in virtual environments
· Limiting energy consumption
The M Series is therefore particularly suitable for virtualised environments, the Cloud, databases, data centres, disk-to-disk backups and all storage applications at block level.
A flexible and scalable range with advanced functionalities even from the entry-level version
The storage arrays of the M Series range:
· operate on a large variety of disks: SSD, SAS or NL-SAS in 3.5’ or 2.5’ format
· and interface with 8 Gbps Fibre Channel, iSCSI 1 or 10 Gbps protocols and soon with SAS
The user benefits from truly adaptable architecture.
Thanks to the 3 base systems, M100, M300 and M500, and their remarkable granularity and scope for expansion, a variety of customised storage solutions is possible, which limits the initial investment.
Each solution actually allows its initial capacity to be greatly expanded by simply adding extension arrays.
The M100, M300 and M500 respectively support up to 96 disks, 144 disks and 386 disks.
What is more, transparent scalability is possible within the range, in order to protect investments.
Moreover, the M Series arrays benefit from advanced replication functions from the entry-level version.
For example, the M100 array supports the “Dynamic Data Replication” and “Remote Data Replication” modes, functions that certain competitors very often only offer on far more expensive mid-range systems.
A very high level of performance and availability
The use of Intel multi-core processors and SSD disks as additional caches for controllers guarantees a very high level of performance. The range provides an IOPS level of performance proportional to the number of disks set up. The user can thus increase the performance of their storage system simply by adding disks.
In the event of hard disk failure, use of Super Phoenix technology, developed and patented by NEC, helps users reduce the amount of reconstruction by 50% and thereby improves the availability of data.
Implementing the “Optimal data allocation” (tiering) function, which automatically puts data on the most relevant disks (SSD, SAS, or NL-SAS) depending on their use, provides faster access to the data and also allows energy savings to be made.
Innovative technologies to limit energy consumption
With their use of the latest technologies (processors, disks, etc.) and provision of intelligent energy management functions, such as MAID (massive array of idle disks) technology, the M Series range has many automatic energy savings and consumption tracking modes as standard.
The M Series range also operates with the “Thin Provisioning” mode, which is particularly interesting in virtual environments for reducing the initial investment and making energy savings.
But above all, NEC, which has unrivalled expertise in power supply using Li-Ion batteries, will soon equip the M Series range with a hybrid power supply. Li-Ion batteries in disk format provide energy to cover consumption peaks, which generates energy savings and reduces costs for the company.
A range that is quick and easy to implement and particularly suitable for virtual environments and Cloud Computing
The “Instant Building” function developed by NEC allows operation to start without waiting for disk formatting to be completed, which saves a significant amount of time, and is therefore a source of savings.
What is more, the “Dynamic pool” function allows a logical disk to be added or removed, or its capacity extended, online and at any time.
The new M Series range also supports a VAAI environment that improves performances, thanks to the reduction in network traffic and processor load.
Finally, disk encryption is also possible, strengthening data security particularly in data centres for example.
“Relevant storage solutions must combine efficient hardware with evolved logical functions in order to respond, among other things, to the issues of resource control, high availability, replication and disaster recovery plans.”
“The M Series storage solutions offer the best customer value as SAN Fibre Channel or iSCSI and soon SAS, thanks to a peerless combination of performance, reliability, scalability, advanced functions and energy efficiency at an attractive price.”
“With the M Series, we are particularly delighted to offer our customers storage solutions that live up to their expectations for today, but also tomorrow,” concludes Thierry Marulier, Product Marketing Manager at NEC IT Platform Solutions.
M-100 Disk Array from NEC IT PF
Ø Product availability:
M100 = available
M300 = 11/2011
M500 = 01/2012
VISIT NEC AT GITEX 2011 ON: STAND Z-D10
