ESG Lab Validates NexGen

NexGen Storage, Inc. announced an Enterprise Strategy Group Lab Validation Report on the NexGen n5 Storage System’s ioControl storage.

Typically available only with multi-million dollar systems, NexGen is the first storage vendor to deliver storage QoS in a midrange SAN. The ESG Lab testing validates the advantage of NexGen’s QoS-based architecture delivering guaranteed performance for mission-critical applications in mixed-workload and virtual server environments.
    
The ESG Lab test confirmed that the NexGen n5 system maintains consistent storage performance for mission-critical applications during three real-world scenarios that every IT manager experiences:

1. Non-critical workload spikes
2. RAID rebuild
3. Controller failure

Lower priority workloads were applied to the n5 and results showed no noticeable impact to the mission critical applications.
    
"NexGen storage successfully addresses the challenges of managing shared storage performance with a uniquely-architected solution that enables IT managers to provision performance as easily as capacity and to guarantee performance for business- and mission-critical applications within a shared storage environment," said Brian Garrett, VP of ESG Lab. "Equally important, NexGen’s simple wizard-driven process makes provisioning and managing performance extremely easy. Similar to setting the cruise control for a car: simply choose a policy and set the desired performance speed – and NexGen’s ioControl ensures that desired storage I/O performance levels are maintained."
    
Customers agree, the combination of groundbreaking new capabilities combined with simplicity and efficiency sets NexGen apart.
    
"NexGen’s storage QoS is very easy to setup and operate. It has a very simple user interface that allowed us to easily accomplish our performance objectives without requiring a vendor-trained engineer," said Robert Samples, Kansas City Urology Care, P.A., senior systems engineer. "The NexGen n5 has a very small footprint compared with our legacy storage, which chewed up a ton of power, required roughly 15U of rack space and cost a fortune every year in maintenance and support. By comparison, the n5 takes up 3U of space and reduces our power requirements by almost 70 percent."
    
Additional highlights of the ESG report include:

• Guaranteed performance. It confirmed that ioControl delivers predictably fast performance for mission-critical applications during spikes of activity from lower-priority applications, RAID rebuilds, and active-active controller failovers, as shown in the attached graphic.
• Performance monitoring. ESG was impressed with the ability of the NexGen management GUI to graphically monitor performance over time. According to ESG, this is a capability that’s often not available in a native storage management interface.
• Performance in a small footprint. NexGen’s 3U 32TB hybrid solid state solution sustained a total system level performance of more than 100,000 random IOPS during ESG Lab testing. By comparison, a traditional modular disk array would need 500 or more disk drives to reach the same level.

"Slow application response times can result in lost sales, lost customer goodwill, lost productivity, lost competitiveness, and increased costs. With more and more companies running entire suites of business applications on a consolidated virtual server infrastructure, mixed-workload scalability with predictable performance is needed now more than ever," added Garrett.
    
NexGen simplifies storage QoS with ‘cruise control’ performance management capabilities. As ESG noted, NexGen’s ioControl works a lot like the cruise control feature in a car. When a car’s cruise control is set to 65 mph, the car maintains a speed of 65 mph whether it is driving on a steep hill or a flat road. Similarly, ioControl makes real-time decisions with a goal of maintaining a desired level of storage I/O performance. NexGen is able to shift resources from non-critical to mission-critical applications to ensure performance so businesses never miss a beat – even when their IT systems experience a degraded mode event.

To download the complete ESG report (registration needed)