eMed Consulting Group Customer of Silicon Mechanics

Silicon Mechanics, Inc.
announces that it has supplied its zStax ZFS unified storage appliance, based
on the Xeon processor E5-2600 product family, to eMed Consulting Group LLC, a Louisville,
Kentucky-based firm that hosts data for medical practices that have implemented
electronic medical record (EMR) systems.

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The unified storage appliance, called zStax StorCore 104, uses a
software-defined storage model that costs a fraction of legacy storage. Tiered
storage features high-performance and archive tiers running on the same
platform.

The zStax StorCore 104 is built on standard hardware. Powered by
NexentaStor, an enterprise-level software-defined storage platform based on
open-source ZFS technology, it offers a NAS/SAN storage solution
that provides enterprise storage features at mid-tier prices. In addition,
unlike legacy storage systems, zStax users can move data and replicate it for DR
at no additional cost.

According to the eMed Consulting Groups CEO Dave Vrona, the zStax StorCore 104
helps eMed fulfill its mission of removing the complexity for doctors adopting
EMRs and ensuring data security.

"We were looking for cost-effective
storage that would support resilient information and multiple servers, and
supported virtualized environments so there could be shared storage,"
says Vrona. "Silicon Mechanics
delivered the solution as a bundle and also provides an extremely high level of
support during any emergencies."

Tommy Scherer, product engineer, Silicon Mechanics, explains that leveraging
the software-defined storage architecture allows eMed to grow its storage
system from a simple read-optimized hybrid storage platform to an
enterprise-level, highly available appliance, optimized for reads and writes.

"As their business needs grow, this architecture will allow them to scale
performance and capacity dynamically," he said.

According to Bev Crair, GM of Intel Corp.‘s storage division, the use of Xeon
processors and Intel NICs, combined with Intel s AES-NI technology, gives the
appliance the performance, stability, and flexibility needed for a
software-defined storage system.

"The zStax StorCore 104, combined with NexentaStor and Intels
technology, provides an innovative, open, and efficient way to store, manage,
help secure, and retrieve data as important as medical records," said Crair.

The zStax StorCore 104 provides storage for database, VMs,
and backup functions with a single scalable storage appliance. It
features two Intel Xeon head nodes, as well as a 4U disk shelf with wear-resistant
SAS SSDs to accelerate performance, 15,000rpm HDDs to provide storage for
database and VMs, and nearline SAS hard drives for backup.

Another feature,
snapshot-based replication, provides asynchronous, bi-directional replication
between the companies established location and storage at its new sites across
the country.