NetApp in All-SSD Flash Array: 2U EF540 …

NetApp, Inc. announced the availability of the EF540 all-flash array for today’s extreme performance-driven enterprise applications, and previewed the architecture of its new, purpose-built FlashRay product family, which will deliver rich scale-out and storage efficiency features to maximize the benefits of all-flash arrays.

The new product introductions extend the its enterprise flash portfolio, which maximizes the value of flash across the entire compute, network and storage stack, enabling the flexibility to choose the best approach to unique workloads.

With a flash portfolio and a complete line of products, including intelligent caching technologies Flash Cache, Flash Pool, and Flash Accel, the EF540 and the forthcoming FlashRay family provide flexibility and choice and maximize the value of flash across the entire compute, network, and storage stack. NetApp has deployed more than 36PB of flash in the market to date.

"Flash changes everything by transforming the speed of business," said Manish Goel, EVP, product operations, NetApp. "However, enterprise imperatives for global scale, efficiency, and reliability remain the same. NetApp’s approach to flash removes the compromise from consideration, offering customers the best of all worlds."

EF540
The EF540, built on the SANtricity operating system, is a flash array combining consistent performance with enterprise HA, reliability, manageability, and worldwide support. Designed for performance-driven applications, It delivers over 300,000 IOPS and submillisecond data access in a highly available, fault-tolerant architecture. It can eliminate storage over-provisioning and reduces costs by cutting space utilization, power, and cooling. Business-critical database applications can run up to 500% faster than in traditional storage environments, delivering instant response times and enterprise reliability.

The EF540 features storage management and tuning functions, enabling efficient management with minimal effort. The storage system maximizes application value and has a fully redundant architecture designed to eliminate downtime.

FlashRay
With the introduction of the FlashRay family, NetApp is developing a new, purpose-built all-flash storage architecture. The product architecture is founded on scale-out and capabilities to maximize the benefits of flash arrays. The new product line will combine consistent, low-latency performance, HA, and integrated data protection with enterprise storage efficiency features such as inline deduplication and compression.

FlashRay will be available in limited beta in the middle of 2013 and will be generally available in 2014. The product line is designed to maximize the value of flash. It continues to execute against a strategy to deliver an intelligent and integrated architecture that is optimized for flash.

Availability
The NetApp EF540 flash array is available. The FlashRay product line will be generally available early in 2014.

Jeff Janukowicz, research director, Solid State Storage and Enabling Technologies, IDC, said: "A new class of arrays is unlocking flash’s full potential and delivering capabilities that accelerate the performance, reliability, and efficiency of enterprise data centers. For all-flash arrays to gain broader market adoption, it is important to look beyond the performance improvements and deliver must-have reliability, availability, and supportability features. The continued growth of NetApp flash storage systems, underscores the value of the company’s approach to managing and storing the massive amounts of data being created today."

Kirk Larson, VP and CIO, Children’s Hospital Central California, said: "NetApp’s all-flash array offering would help us improve the user-experience for high-performance workloads. Currently, we are experiencing 25% annual data growth using NetApp’s Virtual Storage Tier; this combines NetApp efficiency technologies with Flash Cache intelligent caching to prioritize I/O data requests. Hospital staff members can access the right data at the right time, while IT can deliver a more dynamic and cost-effective infrastructure."

Bradley Lauritson, director of Upstream Technology, Apache Corporation, said: "The NetApp storage solution – in particular, their flash solutions – means we can take full advantage of our new software environment for enhanced decision making, unhampered by data transfer delays. Apache can make more accurate and profitable drilling decisions with the NetApp storage as our IT foundation."