AmpliStor AS36 Storage Module From Amplidata

Amplidata announces its AS36 storage module featuring 12 high-density disks in a 1U rack-mount node.

The new system allows CIOs to reduce storage purchase outlays, and reduce floor space and energy requirements by deploying a dense object storage solution: 1.4PB of storage and 40 power-efficient CPU’s in a single data center rack. Lower physical footprint and power usage allow IT managers to meet big data-sized demands for storage at cost-effectiveness.

Debuting at the SNW Fall 2012 conference in Santa Clara, CA the platform leverages the Xeon processor E3-1220LV2 to deliver the performance of 40 Xeon processor E3 -1220LV2 CPU’s in a rack for big data-sized efficiency in IT activities such as background monitoring, integrity verification, policy updates, and data repair. The E3-1220LV2 delivers power efficiency, and expands the number of available disk drives from ten in the previous model, to 12, for a total capacity of 36TB. These technology enhancements will also be incorporated in new Quantum wide area storage solutions for big data management and archive.

The new AS36 also introduces release 3.0 of the AmpliStor software, which provides new features that make it simpler for IT managers to handle large data objects, with support for individual object sizes up to 16TB, as are increasingly found in big data applications in the oil and gas, media and entertainment, and biotech industries. By using AmpliStor with BitSpread, the company’s patent-pending erasure coding technology, these huge files are stored with high-durability, reducing the chance of data loss to less than one in 15-9s – that’s 99.9999999999999% data durability.

"The cloud is putting inexorable pressure on corporate IT to improve efficiency and effectiveness – and at scale, even seemingly small improvements deliver a big impact," said Robin Harris, analyst at StorageMojo. "I’ve watched erasure coding technologies such as Amplidata’s advance over the years and believe it holds tremendous potential to rewrite data enter economics in a major way."

Through the benefits of using Intel processors and advanced software techniques that further capitalize on Amplidata’s patent-pending erasure coding technology, the AS36 system provides performance-, time- and cost-savings:

• Each AS36 storage module delivers an additional 40% faster throughput compared to previous Amplidata modules, by taking advantage of the new Xeon E3-1220LV2 CPUs that can sustain full-line rate throughput to each node. More throughput means greater performance with lower storage requirements and reduced power costs.
• The enhancements in release 3.0 further add time-saving features such as improved parallel data repair, on-line durability-policy changes, on-line support for occasional swapping of defect disks, automated on-line data migration at storage node refresh and support for mixing storage node capacities in addition to on-line self-healing.
• With release 3.0 Amplidata improves upon the efficiency of BitSpread with a further 10% reduction in storage overheads. In contrast, storing these huge files in traditional systems isn’t viable, and using mirrored approaches would impact customers with tremendous storage overhead and high costs.

"Data is the new oil, but CIOs don’t have a bottomless pile of cash to throw at storage. They need their storage to be more efficient, and our solutions do exactly that," said Mike Wall, CEO of Amplidata. "Amplidata’s AS36 solution is inexpensive, it lets CIOs store far more than legacy systems, and it delivers the highest data durability and highest I/O throughput in the business – enough to enable the most demanding applications. We’ve submitted the system for independent performance testing and will be announcing those results in the coming weeks. This is only the start of the impressive performance and throughput upticks you’ll be hearing about from us in the coming months."