Dell’s EqualLogic has for a long time posted numbers that put most others to shame, both in the shear number of mailboxes their PS Series could support, but more importantly, how many disks they required to do it.  Its one thing to say you can support 10,000 Exchange 2010 users, but the real number is how many disks it took you to accomplish the task as that shows how well the SAN uses the physical resources at its disposal (that you have spent good money on).

Well, Nimble Storage has finally gotten their results published and they are simply staggering, besting EqualLogic by a big margin.  They supported 20,000 mailbox users using just one 3U array which only 12 spinning disks (and SATA disks to boot!) .  To those unfamiliar with Nimble that may sound like witchcraft….to those that understand their unique CASL architecture its entirely expected.

Below is a chart on how some of the major players fared.

So, how do they do it?   MAGIC!  No, just kidding…very, very good engineering.  Their CASL architecture combines SSD-as-cache (not a tier), inline compression, variable block sizes and large sequential writes in a way that allows their arrays to put up very high IOPs numbers while also allowing for extreme efficiency in storage utilization.  Put another way: dollar for dollar, no one else is can store more per array while also pushing anywhere near as many IOPs.  It is truly a game-changer.

Check out our Nimble Mini-Site for more info and Contact Us to discuss further and schedule a demo

Source: Microsoft’s ESRP: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/ff182054

Our partner, and the iSCSI market’s Mighty Mouse, Nimble Storage has released some truly impressive figures about their latest fiscal period:

• 500% growth over same quarter in 2010
• 80% quarter-over-quarter growth
• Added over 100 new customers in Q4 2011 alone

This success, while stunning, quickly makes sense when you look behind the curtain:

• Unique CASL architecture which combines inline data compression with variable-block sizes and SSDs as system cache for unparalleled IOPs per $
• A Management and Sales Organization staffed entirely by some of the most well-respected industry veterans on the planet
• A uniquely innovative approach to support that actually has the SAN itself proactively sending health reports and heartbeats back to Nimble
• A simply unbeatable mix of performance, efficiency, and ease of use that puts them at the top of the midrange iSCSI market in terms of value for money.

Contact us today if you’d like to hear more about how Nimble Storage’s iSCSI SAN product line might benefit your organization.

Our Nimble Storage Mini Site

Nimble Storage’s unique architecture has actually helped them during this shortage: because they use SSDs as system cache (not a tier), they require far fewer hard drives (and SATA drives at that) to attain lofty IOPs numbers.  What would take a traditional SAN vendor 90 x 15k rpm SAS drives to accomplish (~15k IOPs), Nimble can easily do with 12 SATA drives and that is paying off in a big way for them and their customers.

Nimble had been consistently winning business on their own merits even before the drive shortage, but when other vendors are quoting 40-60 day lead times and Nimble can ship their iSCSI arrays in just a few days, that only helps their case.

More Info at Our Nimble Mini-Site

]]> http://scaledatacom.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=20 0 http://scaledatacom.com/blog/?p=16 http://scaledatacom.com/blog/?p=16#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:59:51 +0000 scaledatacom http://scaledatacom.com/blog/?p=16 Continue reading →]]>

Entertainment companies have the burden of distributing their content to an ever-increasing list of devices, formats and services.   Working with, transcoding and delivering 3D, HD, 2K and 4K content and the massive file sizes they represent puts a considerable load on storage systems and the IT organizations that manage those systems.   BlueArc’s Mercury and Titan Network Attach Storage (NAS) platforms bring together massive IO, bandwidth, scale and flexibility in a way that not many others can match…and almost no one can do for the price.

BlueArc’s unique architecture and feature set have made them the storage platform of choice for some of the biggest studios, post-production houses and media distribution organizations the world over.

Click the image below for their White Paper on why BlueArc is among the very elite in this industry.

Contact us today if you’d like to discuss how BlueArc’s storage might help your organization and feel free to check out our BlueArc Mini-Site for more info.

Dense:

• 18 Drives in on 2U of Rackspace
• Expanded to either 36 or 78 drives via the E18X or E60X Expansion Chassis

Flexibile:

• Supports SSD, 15k SAS and SATA Drives
• Supports 1Gbe and 10Gbe iSCSI and 8GB Fibre Channel

Efficient:

• AutoMAID granular drive spin down feature greatly reduces power/cooling draw when idle

Please visit our Nexsan Mini-Site or contact us for more info.

There are 3 models:

• E5110 – scales to 31 drives via a 16-bay JBOD
• E5310 – scales to 240 drives via Nexsan’s E60 and E18 SAN arrays
• E5510 – scales to 360 drives “” “”

All E5000’s come with a full compliment is enterprise-class features including snapshots, replication, thin provisioning and wizard-based setup.  In addition, they also have an optional feature called FASTier…this is where it gets interesting.

FASTier uses SSD drives in the system to accelerate read and write IOPs and well as thruput.  Its basically like bolting a turbo to the system and is extremely helpful for random I/O workloads like databases and for virtualization.

The E5000’s are NAS-only at launch but will have iSCSI support in the near future, making them truly unified storage platforms.

Contact us if you’d like to discuss further.

More info on our Nexsan Mini Site

Most traditional SANs deal with this in pretty much the same way: by throwing a lot of 15k drives at the problem.  A 15k rpm SAS drive is said to push ~180 IOPs so most vendors simply use that to calculate how many live drives they’ll need to satisfy the IOPs load.  There are many problems with this:

• 15k drives are expensive
• Its wasteful to store low-level and backup data on 15k drives so you’ll likely also need a tier of SATA drives
• Getting the SAN to quickly adjust to changing IO loads can be tricky
• The high cost of powering and cooling all these drives
• All these drives consume a fair amount of rack space

Nimble’s unique CASL architecture solves these problems.  Here’s how:

• Each Nimble array uses a mix of SSD and high-capacity SATA drives
• The SSDs are used as system cache, not a tier
• This allows the SAN to adjust extremely quickly to IO changes
• Wire-speed inline compression greatly reduces data footprint
• All data is stored in variable block sizes which also improves performance and efficiency
• Random writes are aggregated and written as a single RAID stripe

The result: 18k+ IOPs and far more data stored per 3U array.  The below graphic gives a pretty real-world example.

There is simply no other iSCSI vendor that can do what Nimble does for the money.

Contact us today if you’d like to discuss Nimble Storage in more detail.

Our Nimble Mini-Site has more info.