Scale Computing Adds Replication and Snapshots to ICS 2.0

Scale Computing announced the release of its Intelligent Clustered Storage (ICS) architecture version 2.0.

This second release addresses the three C’s of IT storage purchasing requirements: cost, control and convenience. ICS 2.0 reduces costs, increases control and makes storage management more convenient.
 
“As the third generation of storage evolves, it will need to more thoroughly address the Three C’s in ways that current generation 2.0’s monolithic, active/passive architectures can’t,” said Peter Fuller, VP of Marketing, Scale Computing. “While second generation storage trends toward increasing costs, reducing control and making management more complex, third generation will reverse that trend.”
 
Because Scale’s ICS 2.0 packs enterprise-class features on commodity-based hardware in an all-active environment, it is able to drastically reduce costs while providing the robust feature set needed for today’s rapidly expanding data growth. According to a recent study by the Berkley School of Management, more data has been created in the last three years than in the last 40,000 years combined. This rapid pace of data growth places tremendous pressures on budgets and older, less scalable systems.
 
ICS 2.0

• StarterSAN Prices. Scale’s 1U storage nodes with ICS 2.0 currently come in three configurations of three nodes each (all densities are quoted in usable TBs): 3TB StarterSAN for under $12,000; 6TB StarterSAN for $15,000 and the 12TB StarterSAN for $21,000.
• Low-Cost Growth. Each StarterSAN consists of (3) nodes of varying densities: 1TB, 2TB and 4TB. To scale, simply purchase the storage needed and add it to the cluster. An additional 1TB Storage Node with ICS costs only $3,800.
• Scalable. ICS 2.0 scales to many petabytes on a single file system, creating virtually unlimited scalability for the midmarket. It’s all active (rather than passive/active) architecture stripes and mirrors all data across all nodes. Processing, throughput and storage all scale with each node. Each StarterSAN has 210MB/sec of throughput, scaling by 70MB/sec with each additional node.
• Flexible Architecture. ICS 2.0 is an extremely flexible architecture. Its fine-grain scalability allows IT managers to scale by as little as 1TB per node (for less than $3,400) at a time. And, unlike systems that require control units to recognize specific node densities, ICS 2.0 requires no control unit and allows IT managers to mix and match node densities as they need, providing the ability to buy only the storage required, when it is needed.
• Migrationless Scaling. To add capacity, nodes are simply added to the system. Data is automatically striped and mirrored across the cluster.
• Unified. Scale’s ICS 2.0 represents the next evolution of unified storage. It includes file and block level protocols, allowing SAN/NAS environments to be run from each storage node. CIFS, NFS and iSCSI all run at the same time. This allows IT managers to eliminate file servers, consolidating onto a single, easily scalable platform.
• Snapshot/Replication. Snapshots and asynchronous replication are included features. Synchronous replication also is available through Scale’s professional services group.
• Easy GUI. Scale’s ICS 2.0 does not require command-line management. With its streamlined interface, training takes less than half a day. Some of the most common tasks, such as creating a LUN take less than a minute to complete with ICS 2.0.

“We built a storage architecture we would use,” said Scott Loughmiller, Chief Product Officer, Scale Computing.” As a mid-market company, we needed to reduce our storage costs, increase our control over growth and consolidate our SAN/NAS environments to make storage management more convenient. ICS 2.0 continues that tradition by packing more advanced features per dollar than any other similar product on the market.”