Western Digital: Additions and Enhancements to Intelliflash

_{Western Digital Corp. (WDC) announced additions and enhancements to its Intelliflash data center systems portfolio, giving customers choice and flexibility to design hybrid-cloud infrastructures that accelerate the speed of business and help extract value from data.}

_{By doubling available performance and density, combined with enhanced capabilities for data migration and hybrid-cloud mobility, Intelliflash family of NVMe-flash, all-flash and hybrid-flash arrays delivers an overall value proposition for accelerating today’s demanding workloads and mission-critical applications with low latency and high data availability .}

_{Intelliflash N-Series N5100 removes barrier for adoption of NVMe
The introduction of the Intelliflash N5100 provides an entry-level NVMe performance offering, for customers looking for an affordable solution to accelerate business applications with NVMe. It complements the current N-series lineup of N5200 and N5800 models, offering performance for data-intensive applications that require low latency response times.}

_{The enhanced Intelliflash OS 3.10 creates a unified framework, so mixing and matching Intelliflash arrays for specific workloads.}

_{Double performance
Intelliflash OS 3.10 is the result of the company’s silicon-to-systems vertical innovation efforts in flash management software designed to extract performance from NVMe flash. With it, the N5800 pushes the limits of NVMe by doubling its performance, delivering random performance amongst fully-featured mid-range AFAs with up to 1.7 million IO/s and latency as low as 200µs, resulting in business productivity gains through workload consolidation. ⁽¹⁾}

_{“Today’s data-driven businesses demand that IT support a myriad of needs ranging from virtualized environments through distributed operations to real-time analytics. This is placing new levels of performance, scalability, and efficiency demands on data center infrastructure,” said Scott Sinclair, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “For those looking to modernize their data centers and consolidate workloads, the new Intelliflash NVMe AFAs should be a serious consideration. We’ve had a first-hand look at the Intelliflash OS 3.10 and the NVMe N-series and are impressed with its extremely high levels of performance, its low latency, and its robust feature set.“}

_{Double density
Intelliflash OS 3.10 further improves storage economics with support for 15TB Ultrastar SSDs, doubling the density on select Intelliflash models. By adding 15TB NVMe SSDs, the Intelliflash HD2160 doubles the density of the HD-series 2RU (rack unit) offering from 184TB raw to 368TB. ⁽²⁾ Intelliflash NVMe-based N-series and SAS -based HD-series platforms benefit from high-capacity scale-up options to deliver a substantial increase in workload consolidation while reducing overall hardware footprint. Customers can choose to scale up to 2.5PB of flash in a single array with the high-density HD2160 SAS-based AFA, or combine an N-series array with SAS-based expansion to achieve the mix of performance and economics to meet the demands of a range of workloads. Intelliflash systems start at 19TB raw capacity and can scale to 2.5PB raw flash capacity in 14RU.}

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_{Live dataset migration
It has been easier for customers to adopt newer gen of Intelliflash and NVMe technology as they scale to meet capacity needs. With the introduction of Live Dataset Migration, customers can move legacy Intelliflash data pools to the latest Intelliflash arrays, or support other migration needs – whether on-premises or in hybrid-cloud environments. No reconfiguration or application recording is required. Live Dataset Migration maintains high productivity and BC by enabling LUN migration of iSCSI/FC LUNS while the system is operating, so customers can take advantage of storage that better meets the changing needs of the data.}

_{Enhanced hybrid-cloud data mobility
Intelliflash OS 3.10 also enables simplified data mobility to the cloud with its Amazon S3 cloud connector for AWS connectivity, or to other S3-enabled platforms like the company’s ActiveScale object storage system. Customers can place snapshots in AWS for hybrid-cloud configurations to protect data offsite and cost-effectively move cold or archive data off primary storage without heavy lifting.}

_{“We have built upon our unique expertise in silicon all the way up to systems to ensure our customers have unparalleled value and performance-without compromise,” said Phil Bullinger, SVP and GM, data center systems business unit, Western Digital. “Intelliflash OS 3.10 is a powerful platform, making it easier with the best economics for customers to upgrade legacy storage infrastructure to NVMe-adding a new entry-level price point offering with the Intelliflash N5100, doubling vailable performance and density on select models, adding expansion options for cost-effective scalability, and providing even more data mobility across hybrid cloud environments to accelerate mission-critical workloads.“}

_{Additional enhancements in Intelliflash OS 3.10 include SMB3 optimization for Windows File Server 2016 deployment on Hyper-V, simplified VMware deployments and management of vSphere datastores, enriched administrative features such as Powershell Toolkit for automating Windows storage, and the IntelliCare predictive-analytics health monitoring service.}

_{Become enterprise channel partner
The company launched its enhanced Enterprise Partner Program with streamlined benefits, discounts and programs for its Intelliflash, ActiveScale and Ultrastar platform brands. Solution and cloud providers are encouraged to apply for the the firm’s Enterprise Partner Program to access the selection of go-to-market resources and sales incentives. With the company’s data center portfolio, partners can create solutions and services to solve a customer challenges while helping them grow their business and maximize profitability.}

_{In addition to the Intelliflash family, the firm’s full data center portfolio includes the ActiveScale cloud object storage system, OpenFlex NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) open composable infrastructure; Ultrastar storage servers and storage platforms; Ultrastar memory extension drive; and its family of Ultrastar data center-class HDDs and SSDs.}

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_{Resources:
Blog: Fast Data Just Got Faster with IntelliFlash 3.10
ESG technical validation: IntelliFlash N-Series Performance Report
Product page}

_{⁽¹⁾ Double the performance based on read and mixed workloads. Actual performance and improvement may vary based on environment and workload.
⁽²⁾ 1TB equals one trillion bytes and o1PB equals 1,000TB when referring to storage capacity. Accessible capacity will vary based on operating environment.}

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