Coraid EtherDrive VSX-Series Appliance

Coraid Inc. unveiled its EtherDrive VSX-Series storage virtualization appliances.

The new product family, which supports 1Gb and 10Gb Ethernet, enables storage virtualization and data availability features for Ethernet SAN storage that until now have been found only in legacy Fibre Channel and iSCSI SAN solutions.

Coraid’s VSX-Series is a storage solution combining the price-performance and simplicity of Ethernet SAN with features such as logical volume management (LVM), snapshots, cloning, mirroring and remote replication. EtherDrive VSX-Series appliances are available, and have already been deployed in a multi-petabyte environment for the U.S. Department of Defense.

"Coraid’s scale-out Ethernet SAN platform has now been adopted by over 1,300 customers, no doubt attracted by the massive price-performance and simplicity advantages it offers relative to Fibre Channel and iSCSI solutions," said Mark Peters, senior analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. "Coraid has done an excellent job aligning with the needs of virtualized server environments, but it had been missing some key features to move ‘up-market’ into larger enterprise accounts; its new VSX-Series platform closes this gap with a host of key storage virtualization and availability features, that we expect to increase the company’s disruptive market potential."

"Fast, flexible, and reliable storage is strategic to our business. Coraid’s Ethernet SAN platform gives us unmatched price-performance and simplicity, and the new EtherDrive VSX-Series adds serious enterprise-class features," said ShaColby Jackson, Director of Network Operations at Blue Jeans Network. "The VSX-Series appliance enables us to build a high performance replicated storage infrastructure for far less than the cost of a single Fibre Channel storage array."

"Coraid is passionate about redefining storage economics, and the VSX-Series delivers storage virtualization and availability features to drive that value into mission-critical enterprise environments," said Kevin Brown, CEO of Coraid. "Just as x86 servers and virtualization added features until they replaced monolithic servers, Ethernet SAN is closing the gap on advanced enterprise features to replace outdated monolithic storage. The adoption of virtualization and cloud architectures only accelerates this trend."

Ethernet SAN Virtualization
EtherDrive VSX-Series appliances deliver advanced scale-out storage functionality including:

• Logical Volume Management: VSX virtualizes physical storage resources, enabling users to build and resize flexible virtual volumes that span multiple storage shelves. Storage administrators can expand pools by adding new EtherDrive units.
• Mirroring: VSX supports no-single-point-of-failure (NSPOF) configurations where data can be synchronously replicated to two separate storage arrays. NSPOF configurations provide uptime and resiliency against failures at the network, mirror, or storage array level.
• Snapshots: VSX delivers block-level data snapshots, enabling rollback of computing environments in case of IT disruptions. VSX supports up to 4080 LUNs, and 256 snapshots per LUN.
• Clones: These ‘writeable snapshots’ provide flexibility for copying and branching existing application environments. Clones are popular in test/dev environments where multiple experimental versions are required. VSX enables unlimited clones per snapshot, and capacity is consumed only when new data is written to the clone.
• Asynchronous Replication: Coraid’s Snap Shadow functionality enables snapshots to be copied over the WAN for disaster recovery and other purposes, with no latency impact to the production systems. VSX tracks all metadata and buffers WAN latency.

EtherDrive VSX-Series was designed to natively support scale-out environments. A single or paired set of VSX appliances can support multiple EtherDrive SR or SRX-Series arrays over Ethernet with no direct cabling, enabling customers to simply add capacity without the need to configure or pay for more software. VSX utilizes a unique ‘semi-in-band’ design that centralizes metadata and storage requests, while delegating heavier data transfer workloads down to the storage arrays under management. By enabling the array shelves to send data directly to servers over Ethernet, VSX minimizes bottlenecks and enables scalability.

Ethernet SAN Goes Enterprise
Coraid introduced Ethernet SAN technology into the Linux market in 2004, and developed the ATA-over-Ethernet (AoE) driver that became standard in the Linux kernel in 2005. With $35 million in recent funding, the launch of 10Gb Ethernet products, and solutions for VMware, Windows, and Solaris environments, Coraid’s installed base has grown to over 1,300 customers including large deployments in government and Fortune 100 organizations. The new VSX-Series enables Ethernet SAN to match the capabilities of legacy Fibre Channel, FCoE, and iSCSI offerings while delivering price-performance gains. Ethernet SAN’s scale-out architecture and native Layer 2 Ethernet networking provide a flexible storage platform for enterprise virtualization and cloud projects.

Coraid’s EtherDrive VSX-Series appliances are available through Coraid’s global network of IT solution providers.