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    Dell EMC Bolsters Storage Portfolio

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    Following on the heels of the completion of the merger of Dell and EMC, the combined new entity this week upgraded the portfolio of storage platforms originally developed by EMC.

    Starting with the launch of a Dell EMC VMAX 250F array aimed at the top end of midmarket IT organizations, Dell EMC is making a concerted effort to extend the reach of the EMC portfolio. To that end, the Dell EMC VMAX 250F array leverages a V-Brick architecture that EMC originally developed for its converged systems. The Dell EMC VMAX 250F array scales up to 1PB of capacity using either 7.6 or 15TB solid-state drives (SSDs). The base configuration of the Dell EMC VMAX 250F starts at 11TB and can deliver over 1 million IOPS.

    Peter Smails, vice president of product marketing for DELL EMC, says the goal is to make VMAX systems more affordable by pushing the entry point for VMAX storage to under $100,000.

    At the same time, Dell EMC announced it has upgraded the HYPERMAX operating system it employs on its VMAX storage systems to include support for inline compression and data reduction. Dell EMC says that upgrade provides an overall improvement in storage economics by a factor of four.

    Dell EMC this week also upgraded the Dell EMC Unity line of storage systems to add support for the latest high-capacity 15TB SSDs and inline compression. IT organizations can now also leverage built-in tools for sharing data with the Virtustream public cloud managed by Dell EMC. The Dell EMC Unity systems come in a 2u appliance designed specifically for midmarket IT organizations that provides access to analytics delivered via the cloud to optimize performance.

    Also unveiled this week is a VPLEX VS6 platform, which Dell EMC says delivers twice the performance at one-third the latency and provides much greater scale than previous generations. Just as significant, Smails says Dell EMC is now tying the software license for VPLEX to the core storage engine. As a result, there’s no additional cost for using VPLEX systems to protect data because pricing is no longer affected by the amount of data stored on the system.

    Finally, Dell EMC has updated its Dell EMC SRDF software to make it possible to now asynchronously and synchronously share data across a wide area network, added an SSD option alongside integration with Virtustream to its Data Domain line of data protection appliances, and enhanced the manageability and security of its DDSD D5 all-flash storage system  for the high end of the enterprise.

    In general, Smails says Flash storage has now become the default option inside the data center as the cost of acquiring all Flash technologies reaches parity with high-end magnetic storage. Couple that with reduced operating costs, and Smails says use cases for magnetic storage are starting to narrow.

    “The move to all-Flash is happening rapidly,” says Smails.

    The issue facing IT organizations is how and when to best apply Flash storage across a broad array of use cases that more often than not will be defined by the unique requirements of any given application workload.

    Mike Vizard
    Mike Vizard
    Michael Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist, with nearly 30 years of experience writing and editing about enterprise IT issues. He is a contributor to publications including Programmableweb, IT Business Edge, CIOinsight and UBM Tech. He formerly was editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise, where he launched the company’s custom content division, and has also served as editor in chief for CRN and InfoWorld. He also has held editorial positions at PC Week, Computerworld and Digital Review.

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