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Taking Control of Data Management Demands
New SGI InfiniteStorage 4600 RAID System If today's high-performance computing users can be sure of anything, it's that their data storage requirements are a moving target. Constantly growing data sets, the increasing demands placed on storage systems by complex applications, consolidation, and the simple need to add capacity-all of these factors ensure that storage needs never stand still.
For IT administrators struggling to manage data in such hostile environments, SGI has introduced a powerful new RAID storage system. The SGI® InfiniteStorage 4600 helps organizations meet the escalating bandwidth and I/O demands of today's performance-driven applications. The company's flagship RAID system, the SGI® InfiniteStorage 4600 augments the InfiniteStorage product line, extending its ability to provide leading-edge data management solutions to scientific, engineering and high-performance business environments. Targeted at data-intensive applications, high I/O workloads, and large-scale consolidation, the new system answers the escalating data management needs of today's workflows with the flexibility to combine a variety of network interfaces and disk drives in a single system. The SGI InfiniteStorage 4600 deploys seventh-generation technology within a proven solution architecture built on more than 25 years of industry-leading high-performance storage expertise. SGI combines that expertise with the company's unique ability to seamlessly integrate the InfiniteStorage 4600 solution into any high-performance computing (HPC) or high-performance business (HPB) environment, while providing the agility to support hybrid computing workflows. According to Raj Das, SGI's vice president of storage, today's performance organizations "require a flexible storage solution, one that cost-effectively delivers leading performance and scales to fit workflow demands. The InfiniteStorage 4600 meets those criteria today, while providing plenty of headroom for growth in the future." 'Leading Edge of Demand'
With the system's industry-leading throughput and I/O performance, Das says the new RAID solution ideal for earth and life sciences, engineering and manufacturing, defense and intelligence applications, and digital asset management environments. Mark Peters, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, views the system as having the potential to allay many of the major concerns of IT administrators. "For those users operating at the leading edge of demand for IOPS and bandwidth," says Peters, "this new offering from SGI has the potential to let them sleep a little easier, knowing that they'll have sufficient 'balanced brute force' to deal with the intense and complex demands of their applications - and that it's from a supplier that truly understands those demands." The InfiniteStorage 4600 initially will feature 16 redundant 4Gb/second Fibre Channel drive channels, double the data transfer rate of the SGI® InfiniteStorage 4500, to deliver up to 6,000 sustained MB/second¹ of host-side bandwidth. A range of applications also can exploit the system's blistering I/O performance, designed to reach 175,000 sustained IOPS (Input/Output Operations per Second)². Subsequent releases will also feature support for 8Gb/second Fibre Channel and both DDR and QDR InfiniBand connectivity. The SGI InfiniteStorage 4600 matches this performance advantage with superior configuration flexibility. The new system can scale to support 256 Fibre Channel, SATA or FC drives at initial release. With high-density SATA drives, one system can support 256TB of raw storage capacity. However, by mixing drives, customers can achieve a tiered storage environment to accommodate RAID block storage, high-capacity environments, consolidation and virtualization initiatives, and a range of data management needs. The InfiniteStorage 4600 also offers a wide choice of RAID levels (1, 3, 5, 6, and 10) to allow administrators to choose the protection/performance combination that best fits their environment. Fully redundant I/O paths, automated failover and online administration create "always-on" availability to ensure that data remains accessible in the event of possible failures. Advanced Storage Administration Environment The new system also comes with the latest release of SGI® InfiniteStorage System Manager software, which customers can use to configure and administer the InfiniteStorage 4600 system. InfiniteStorage System Manager allows IT administrators to cost-effectively get the most from their storage investment via a common intuitive user interface through which they can manage all SGI storage systems. With InfiniteStorage System Manager software, users have continuous access to data even during system configuration, reconfiguration, expansion and maintenance. Organizations can better protect their data by proactively monitoring drive health, and enhanced replication capabilities-from more mirrors to a larger number of snapshots per volume-ensure valuable data remains intact. The new environment also supports up to 512 partitions and 2,048 Fibre Channel log-ins, making the InfiniteStorage 4600 ideal for large-scale consolidations and data virtualization. Other features, including increased queue depth and support for volumes greater than 2TB, ensure that the system keeps pace with the most demanding HPC and enterprise applications. More than Features and Specs For Peters, the analyst at Enterprise Storage Group, the new offering represents more than a laundry list of features and specs: "The packaging of multi-dimensional scalability means that performance, capacity, and throughput can be thoroughly well provisioned," he notes. "What is likely to make the product more attractive are other attributes less traditionally associated with HPC, such as storage tiering, investment protection, and the 'always on' data availability. "Just because users operate at the edge of computing possibilities does not mean that they do not need, or value, basic business attributes just as much as any enterprise user." The SGI InfiniteStorage 4600 RAID system is available today from SGI or one of its value-added resellers. Editor's Notes ¹ Based on sequential 512K disk reads from Fibre Channel media ² Based on random 4K disk reads from Fibre Channel media | |
