Fortuna Power Distributes Proware EP-3164 iSCSI RAID/MAID in UK

Specialist distributor Fortuna Power Systems Ltd announces the UK availability of the Proware EPICa EP-3164 RAID/MAID subsystems from Proware Technology Corp.

Proware’s EP-3164 range is VMware, XenServer 5.0.0 and Microsoft Hyper-V compatible. The EP-3164 range provides high-speed and high availability general purpose storage to virtualised, cloud-computing and grid-computing platforms. With interchangeable components and a flexible design that does not put constraints on customers, EP-3164 is able to scale up and outwards as clients’ requirements grow. The Proware EP-3164 also boasts a cost effective point. Key vertical markets include video, bioscience, oil and gas, banking and CCTV. It is also perfectly suited for customers looking to ‘Green’ their datacentre infrastructure.

Costain Energy & Process, an UK engineering and construction firm, has been working with Proware storage technologies since 2006. The IT team was looking for a storage solution that offers high performance, affordably priced and would be highly scalable for future storage requirements. Costain stores a total of 48 TB of data – including CAD design images, blueprints, etc. – with Proware. It currently uses three Proware EPICa iSCSI RAID/MAID storage subsystems for primary data storage from six VMware servers, totalling around 12 TB. Backup data, both incremental and full, they have Proware Simbolo backup systems with a total capacity of 36TB and stored remotely on tape at Iron Mountain facilities.

"I am very satisfied with the performance and cost-effectivenes of the Proware storage," said Peter Bunting, Systems Controller at Costain Energy & Process. "Backup throughput is about 1,400 MB per minute, which is outstanding. Our experience with the Proware systems has been excellent, even the very minor hiccup on our first installation, which Fortuna Power Systems, our Proware partner had already solved by the time we came in the next morning. Something which others wouldn’t be able to turn around in a week. Support isn’t the only superior part of the Proware offering, products perform more quickly and are extremely reliable. Overall, I would recommend Proware technology without hesitation."

Benefits of the Proware EP-3164 RAID/MAID subsystems include low power usage, high availability, capacity, expandability, redundancy, speed, performance and cost effective of ownership. The EP-3164 also boasts Green credentials, with power selection options, subject to application, delivering lower power usage than most of the main competitors.

"The Proware EP-3164 RAID/MAID subsystems are technically first-class. From the subtle design to low power usage to high speed and capacity, EP-3164 brings industry the high-speed, high-performance solution it needs to meet the challenges of the virtualized, cloud and grid storage environments," said Ray Quattromini, Managing Director of Fortuna Power Systems, Proware’s premium EMEA distribution partner.

Quattromini added: "With the EP-3164 range, Proware offers a fantastic cost effective alternative to more expensive options from other established storage players."

Fortuna Power Systems boasts a six-year relationship with Proware. Quattromini said Fortuna was initially drawn to Proware because "we were looking for something new from a reputable vendor that was reliable, feature-rich and offered excellent benefits to the customer."

Technical information

Virtualization

• VMware approved
• XenServer5.0.0 compatible
• Hyper-V compatible

Performance & Reliability

• Supports Dual-active controllers
• Front-end 8 x 1GbE or 4 x 10GbE iSCSI ports
• Supports 802.3ad port trunking, Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP)
• High data bandwidth of system architecture by powerful 64-bit RAID processor

Data Availability

• RAID 6 capabilities provide the highest level of data protection
• Supports snapshot-on-the-box w/o relying on host software
• Supports Microsoft Windows Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS)

Manageability Menu-driven front panel display

• Management GUI via serial console, SSH telnet, Web and secure web (HTTPS)
• Event notification via Email and SNMP trap
• Menu-driven front panel display

Features

• Front-end 8 x 1GbE or 4 x 10GbE NIC ports per system with high availability/load balancing/ fail-over support  (802.3ad port trunking, LACP)
• Supports iSCSI jumbo frame
• Supports Microsoft Multipath I/O (MPIO)
• Supports RAID levels 0, 1, 0+1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60 and JBOD
• Local N-way mirror: Extension to RAID 1 level, N copies of the disk
• Global and dedicated hot spare disks
• Write-through or write-back cache policy for different application usage
• Supports greater than 2TB per volume set (64-bit LBA support)
• Supports manual or scheduling volume snapshot (up to 32 snapshot)
• Snapshot rollback mechanism    
• Online volume migration with no system down-time
• Online volume expansion
• Instant RAID volume availability and background initialization
• Supports S.M.A.R.T, NCQ and OOB Staggered Spin-up capable drives

The Proware EPICa EP-3164 RAID/MAID subsystems are available in EMEA.