Pillar Announced "Application-Aware Storage" Services

If data is the lifeblood of an organization, the applications are
its heart. Cost control and risk mitigation in data centers typically
are adversarial pursuits. Ensuring application uptime and performance
within those constraints is the data center manager’s primary
objective. Most data storage systems, however, are oblivious to the
applications they are serving. Today, Pillar Data Systems
significantly alters that landscape.

All applications are not created equal. All data is not created
equal. As storage administrators look to control costs in their data
centers, the ability to match their storage resources with the value
of data at the application level promises that their overall IT
environment is optimized, from the application to the underlying
infrastructure.

"Pillar saw a need and recognized that a company’s storage
environment shouldn’t just house data, but should support the unique
needs of every application," said David Riley, CIO, Foundry Networks.
"With the highest utilization rates in the industry, Pillar Axiom
allows us to dynamically optimize our storage environment to the
associated applications that run our business. Since Pillar offers
optimal performance to our applications, we also don’t have to worry
about trading out performance for additional storage."

Pillar Data Systems is the only storage company to deliver true
Application-Aware Storage services. The Pillar Axiom allows an
administrator to define the application type and its associated
values, and the system automatically tunes itself to deliver
differentiated storage service levels based on application priority.
What truly differentiates the Pillar Axiom is its ability to manage
multiple and varying types of applications on a single platform,
maintaining the unique values and characteristics of each. The
resulting benefits include a 50 percent reduction in administrative
expenses and total cost of ownership, as well as industry-leading disk
utilization of up to 80 percent.

"We view today’s announcement as a game-changing event in the data
storage industry," said Mike Workman, CEO and chairman, Pillar Data
Systems. "Just as Pillar led the industry in bringing forth new
technologies and driving greater data center efficiencies, we’re
pioneering the integration between application and storage by bringing
to market truly Application-Aware Storage."

The Pillar Axiom Application-Aware Storage system enables users to
optimize their application environments by:

• Dynamically reassign resources temporarily or permanently. The
  proliferation of applications and the constantly changing needs of the
  business require a storage infrastructure that can adapt to those
  changing needs. The Pillar Axiom is the only storage system on the
  market today with the flexibility to meet those dynamic requirements.
• Provision storage like you provision servers. By provisioning
  Application-Aware Storage as seamlessly as users provision virtual
  servers, management and maintenance becomes a simpler task – and
  infrastructure optimization becomes automatic. With Pillar, storage
  administrators are able to provision a LUN in six clicks, eliminating
  the operational inefficiencies associated with today’s legacy
  infrastructures.
• Slash administration time. Simplified management combined with a
  system that can be tuned to specific service level needs of multiple
  applications greatly reduces administrative time.

Comm-Works, a leading North American provider of technology and
infrastructure services and solutions for large corporations and
government agencies found the benefits of utilizing Pillar’s
application-aware storage system.

"Pillar has cracked the code for today’s storage needs. My
applications need more than just a LUN, they need an array that is
capable of differentiating services based upon real-time performance
demands," said Greg Thayer, Director of Information Technology,
Comms-Works. "The idea of provisioning my storage like I provision my
virtualized servers, by resources, is just so intuitive and I am
surprised that no one has thought of it until now."

Pillar Data Systems will extend, over the next 90 days, its
Application-Aware Storage platform with several enhanced features and
specific configurations to address the needs of database,
virtualization, messaging and data protection applications.

"It’s hard to argue with a strategy that says marrying the
specific requirements of an application to a finely tuned
infrastructure is anything but good," said Steve Duplessie, senior
analyst and founder, Enterprise Strategy Group. "This is the next
frontier of storage intelligence."

Pillar Data Systems

Comm-Works