DataDirect Networks Announces SFA12K Series of Big Data Appliances
Big Data is a big deal these days, and DataDirect Networks (DDN) is launching a series of appliances designed to handle it faster and cheaper. The new SFA12K series of appliances includes the SFA12K (40GBpss and 1.4 Million Flash IOPS) and the SFA12K-20E and SFA12K-20 (20GBps of bandwidth and 700K Flash IOPS).
The appliances run on the company’s new StorageScaler 8460 (SS8460) high-density storage enclosure, which can handle up to eighty-four 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch drives (SATA, SAS, or SSD) in a 4U rack space. Other features include Storage Fusion Fabric, SATAssure+, and enhanced QoS.
“The exponential growth of Big Data is putting significant strain on IT infrastructures and challenging organizations’ ability to successfully ingest, store, process and distribute data. With the SFA12K series’ groundbreaking ability to virtualize applications and store and process within the same appliance, we are delivering ideal storage and compute infrastructure solutions for organizations worldwide,” said Alex Bouzari, CEO and cofounder of DataDirect Networks, in a press release.
The SFA12K appliances are available for pre-order now and will ship in Q2 2012.
“The exponential growth of Big Data is putting significant strain on IT infrastructures and challenging organizations’ ability to successfully ingest, store, process and distribute data,” said Alex Bouzari, CEO and cofounder, DataDirect Networks. “With the SFA12K series’ groundbreaking ability to virtualize applications and store and process within the same appliance, we are delivering ideal storage and compute infrastructure solutions for organizations worldwide.”
With this release, DDN is introducing three new models of its Storage Fusion Architecture:
The SFA12K-40 delivers the industry’s highest single-platform performance, at over 40GB⁄s and 1.4 Million Flash IOPS. With InifniBand™ and Fibre Channel connectivity, the system is designed to easily scale file storage systems to 1TB⁄s and beyond with as little as 25 arrays — enabling consolidation as much as 8:1 as opposed to competing technology such as that from NetApp1
Featuring highly-optimized virtualization and x86 co-processing, the SFA12K-20E extends DDN’s In-Storage Processing™ offering, first announced in 2009, to host DDN’s ExaScaler™ and GridScaler™ parallel file systems and⁄or customer applications natively within the storage array. With 40Gb Ethernet and InfiniBand connectivity, each SFA12K-20E delivers 20GB⁄s of bandwidth and 700K Flash IOPS while also driving down data access latency and eliminating the cost and complexity of external computing and storage networking for virtualized Windows and Linux applications
The SFA12K-20 combines best-in-class storage performance with a cost-optimized system configuration to economically deliver over 20GB⁄s and 700K Flash IOPS from a single system.
“DDN is a laser-focused company that invests in IP to drive the best possible performance,” said Dave Vellante, President and CEO of Wikibon.org. “Features such as In-Storage Processing, Real-Time I⁄O and a unique storage fabric allow processing to be pushed closer to the data and raises the bar on the competition. With these innovations, DDN is signaling to customers that it’s time to reconsider the status quo. Importantly, this announcement plays into a broader information systems agenda by establishing a baseline platform that can scale and respond to big, fast data requirements.”
Each new appliance is powered by DDN’s new StorageScaler™ 8460 (SS8460) high-density storage enclosure. Capable of housing up to 84 3.5" and 2.5" SATA, SAS and SSD devices in only 4U of rack space, this exclusive offering from DDN reduces data center sprawl by up to 40% as compared to even the highest density storage array offerings and requires 58% less space efficient than competing scale-out file storage offerings.
“Our multi-disciplinary research agenda presents our computation and storage resources with a demanding and unpredictable workload,” said Professor Dr. Arndt Bode, chairman of the board of directors of the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre in Munich, Germany. “The LRZ has selected IBM and DDN to deliver a new SFA12K-based system to power a 15PB, multi-100GB⁄ storage environment that answers the multi-discipline challenge and will support the needs of, SuperMUC, one of the world’s largest supercomputing systems.”
In addition to high performance configuration, the SFA12K series of systems feature a number of new advancements from DDN, including:
Storage Fusion Fabric™: DDN delivers world-leading storage access density and supports up to 160 dedicated 6GB SAS lanes and up to 500% greater storage access density than competing systems2, aggregating and maximizing the performance of performance-intensive SSD devices to enable customers to avoid expensive PCIe-based approaches to Flash-based application acceleration
Quality of service: With new versions of DDN’s SFAOS, DDN will deliver real-time quality of service and predictable latency for read-intensive applications requiring sustained data access even during system component failure events
SATAssure+™: DDN’s SATAssure+ capability enables the system to autonomously heal itself from errant SATA drive failures through intelligent fault and power management to reduce instances of SATA drive replacement by up to 80%
Systems management: The SFA12K will feature several new serviceability and usability features, including a scriptable API for simplified systems administration and monitoring.
The appliances run on the company’s new StorageScaler 8460 (SS8460) high-density storage enclosure, which can handle up to eighty-four 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch drives (SATA, SAS, or SSD) in a 4U rack space. Other features include Storage Fusion Fabric, SATAssure+, and enhanced QoS.
“The exponential growth of Big Data is putting significant strain on IT infrastructures and challenging organizations’ ability to successfully ingest, store, process and distribute data. With the SFA12K series’ groundbreaking ability to virtualize applications and store and process within the same appliance, we are delivering ideal storage and compute infrastructure solutions for organizations worldwide,” said Alex Bouzari, CEO and cofounder of DataDirect Networks, in a press release.
The SFA12K appliances are available for pre-order now and will ship in Q2 2012.
Data Direct Networks (DDN) Introduces SFA12K Big Data Appliances Which Accelerate Application Processing By 800% and Enhance Data Center Efficiency by 58%
DDN’S SFA12K Big Data Appliances Deliver Unprecedented Performance While Uniquely Combining Storage and Processing Functions in a Single Virtualized Platform
CHATSWORTH, CA — (November 9, 2011) — DataDirect Networks (DDN), the world’s largest privately-held information storage company, today unveiled the SFA12K™ series of Big Data appliances, a groundbreaking suite of products designed to accelerate data-intensive applications and consolidate infrastructure to minimize total cost of data storage ownership for Big Data, high-performance computing, cloud, and content-intensive environments.“The exponential growth of Big Data is putting significant strain on IT infrastructures and challenging organizations’ ability to successfully ingest, store, process and distribute data,” said Alex Bouzari, CEO and cofounder, DataDirect Networks. “With the SFA12K series’ groundbreaking ability to virtualize applications and store and process within the same appliance, we are delivering ideal storage and compute infrastructure solutions for organizations worldwide.”
With this release, DDN is introducing three new models of its Storage Fusion Architecture:
The SFA12K-40 delivers the industry’s highest single-platform performance, at over 40GB⁄s and 1.4 Million Flash IOPS. With InifniBand™ and Fibre Channel connectivity, the system is designed to easily scale file storage systems to 1TB⁄s and beyond with as little as 25 arrays — enabling consolidation as much as 8:1 as opposed to competing technology such as that from NetApp1
Featuring highly-optimized virtualization and x86 co-processing, the SFA12K-20E extends DDN’s In-Storage Processing™ offering, first announced in 2009, to host DDN’s ExaScaler™ and GridScaler™ parallel file systems and⁄or customer applications natively within the storage array. With 40Gb Ethernet and InfiniBand connectivity, each SFA12K-20E delivers 20GB⁄s of bandwidth and 700K Flash IOPS while also driving down data access latency and eliminating the cost and complexity of external computing and storage networking for virtualized Windows and Linux applications
The SFA12K-20 combines best-in-class storage performance with a cost-optimized system configuration to economically deliver over 20GB⁄s and 700K Flash IOPS from a single system.
“DDN is a laser-focused company that invests in IP to drive the best possible performance,” said Dave Vellante, President and CEO of Wikibon.org. “Features such as In-Storage Processing, Real-Time I⁄O and a unique storage fabric allow processing to be pushed closer to the data and raises the bar on the competition. With these innovations, DDN is signaling to customers that it’s time to reconsider the status quo. Importantly, this announcement plays into a broader information systems agenda by establishing a baseline platform that can scale and respond to big, fast data requirements.”
Each new appliance is powered by DDN’s new StorageScaler™ 8460 (SS8460) high-density storage enclosure. Capable of housing up to 84 3.5" and 2.5" SATA, SAS and SSD devices in only 4U of rack space, this exclusive offering from DDN reduces data center sprawl by up to 40% as compared to even the highest density storage array offerings and requires 58% less space efficient than competing scale-out file storage offerings.
“Our multi-disciplinary research agenda presents our computation and storage resources with a demanding and unpredictable workload,” said Professor Dr. Arndt Bode, chairman of the board of directors of the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre in Munich, Germany. “The LRZ has selected IBM and DDN to deliver a new SFA12K-based system to power a 15PB, multi-100GB⁄ storage environment that answers the multi-discipline challenge and will support the needs of, SuperMUC, one of the world’s largest supercomputing systems.”
In addition to high performance configuration, the SFA12K series of systems feature a number of new advancements from DDN, including:
Storage Fusion Fabric™: DDN delivers world-leading storage access density and supports up to 160 dedicated 6GB SAS lanes and up to 500% greater storage access density than competing systems2, aggregating and maximizing the performance of performance-intensive SSD devices to enable customers to avoid expensive PCIe-based approaches to Flash-based application acceleration
Quality of service: With new versions of DDN’s SFAOS, DDN will deliver real-time quality of service and predictable latency for read-intensive applications requiring sustained data access even during system component failure events
SATAssure+™: DDN’s SATAssure+ capability enables the system to autonomously heal itself from errant SATA drive failures through intelligent fault and power management to reduce instances of SATA drive replacement by up to 80%
Systems management: The SFA12K will feature several new serviceability and usability features, including a scriptable API for simplified systems administration and monitoring.
