STORAGE
Sun Introduces New Generation of Modular Storage
Sun StorageTek 6140 Array Delivers 2x the Storage Density of Competing Solutions, Sets World Record for Price/Performance on SPC-2 Benchmark -- Sun Microsystems today introduced the Sun StorageTek modular storage family and the first two products in the family -- the Sun StorageTek 6140 and 6540 arrays. The StorageTek 6140 array delivers 2x the density and the StorageTek 6540 array delivers 2x the performance of competing solutions. For midsize-to-enterprise customers who need to support business-critical applications, Sun's quick-deploy modular storage line delivers non-disruptive flexibility, complete system availability, lower overall costs, and fast time to business benefit. As the first new products to be released under the combined Sun StorageTek roadmap, the modular family incorporates the best of both companies -- heterogeneous service and support expertise from StorageTek and end-to-end systems expertise from Sun. 
The StorageTek modular storage family is designed for customers seeking to support business-critical applications and for Service Providers looking for a cost-effective, easy-to-use enterprise-class platform with the ability to confidently handle large data sets. Through common storage modules, common array management, and common data services, Sun's new modular storage line helps customers preserve the investments they've made in people, processes and infrastructure. This new family also delivers a full suite of data services and enterprise-level data protection capabilities for the midmarket.
"With the right balance of enterprise-class functionality and price, it's obvious why modular storage has become an attractive data center option. Today, Sun is taking it to the next level with a family of modular storage arrays that exceeds the rigorous requirements of business-critical applications and surpasses the performance, density and flexibility of existing modular systems," said Paul Giroux, vice president, Storage, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "This is just one example of the value Sun StorageTek delivers customers -- watch for additional developments in short order."
"Storage managers are looking for solutions that scale in performance, capacity and capability," said John McArthur, Group Vice President and General Manager at IDC. "The new Sun StorageTek modular storage family provides an open, standards-based system with the scale to support a wide variety of data and storage services for business critical applications."
StorageTek 6140 and 6540 Array Product Features; StorageTek 6140 Array Sets World Record for SPC-2 Price/Performance
The StorageTek 6140 array is a ROHS-compliant, 4 gigabits-per-second (Gb/sec) Fibre Channel (FC) array designed for both direct attached and SAN attached storage. The system features a fully redundant architecture with drive intermixing (FC or SATA-2 disk drives), 8x 4 Gb FC ports, 4GB cache, application-oriented management, switched drive connectivity, and a maximum capacity of 112 disk drives. The StorageTek 6540 array is a ROHS-compliant, 4 GB/sec Fibre Channel (FC) array focused on large databases and high-performance computing. The system features a fully redundant architecture with drive intermixing (FC or SATA-2 disk drives), 8x 4 Gb FC ports, 16 GB cache, application-oriented management, switched drive connectivity, and a maximum capacity of 224 disk drives.
Key features in the modular storage line include:
Application Profiles and Profile Cloning -- Application Profiles speed deployment of application specific configurations with automated provisioning. More than 15 profiles are included with the added flexibility of customizing existing profiles to better suit requirements. Sun's Profile Cloning reduces time to deploy through quick, simple configuration replication.
Instant-on Volumes & Dynamic Volume Configuration -- Virtually eliminates the time users have to wait to use new storage volumes, and enables fine-tuning application performance without disrupting critical business operations. With Instant-on Volumes, Sun customers gain immediate access to storage capacity. Additionally, every volume characteristic from RAID level to replication mode and controller assignment may be changed non-disruptively, delivering the flexibility to help ensure optimum application performance.
Common Storage Modules & Management -- With common management, common storage modules, and the ability to replicate data across generations, Sun customers can maximize use of their critical IT resources and protect investments while lowering overall costs.
Broad suite of data protection software and services -- Protects data from local, site and regional outages while conserving costly disk space and includes replication, snapshot and full-volume copy. Also facilitates offline data analysis and testing with full volume copies for complete system availability.
High availability architecture with world-class service and support -- With a fully redundant (N+1) architecture and award-winning service and support, users can trust Sun to provide complete system availability.
Sun also announced that the Storage Performance Council (SPC) vendor-independent audited and certified results show the StorageTek 6140 array set the world record for SPC-2 price/performance and delivered the best performance in its class. The measurement was run on a StorageTek 6140 array in conjunction with a Sun Fire(TM) X4200 server and delivered 686.90 SPC-2 MBPS performance and an SPC-2 price/performance of $124.36 SPC-2 $/MBPS (TM), ASU Capacity of 2,147.484 GB, Total Cost of $85,424, Auth# B00008. Full configuration details as well as results can be found at the SPC: Web site .
Additional technology specifications on the StorageTek 6140 and 6540 arrays are located at:
its Web site.
The StorageTek 6140 array starts at $25,000 USD and is available from Sun and its authorized resellers. The StorageTek 6540 array starts at $85,000 USD and will be available in the next 30 days.
The StorageTek modular storage family is designed for customers seeking to support business-critical applications and for Service Providers looking for a cost-effective, easy-to-use enterprise-class platform with the ability to confidently handle large data sets. Through common storage modules, common array management, and common data services, Sun's new modular storage line helps customers preserve the investments they've made in people, processes and infrastructure. This new family also delivers a full suite of data services and enterprise-level data protection capabilities for the midmarket.
"With the right balance of enterprise-class functionality and price, it's obvious why modular storage has become an attractive data center option. Today, Sun is taking it to the next level with a family of modular storage arrays that exceeds the rigorous requirements of business-critical applications and surpasses the performance, density and flexibility of existing modular systems," said Paul Giroux, vice president, Storage, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "This is just one example of the value Sun StorageTek delivers customers -- watch for additional developments in short order."
"Storage managers are looking for solutions that scale in performance, capacity and capability," said John McArthur, Group Vice President and General Manager at IDC. "The new Sun StorageTek modular storage family provides an open, standards-based system with the scale to support a wide variety of data and storage services for business critical applications."
StorageTek 6140 and 6540 Array Product Features; StorageTek 6140 Array Sets World Record for SPC-2 Price/Performance
The StorageTek 6140 array is a ROHS-compliant, 4 gigabits-per-second (Gb/sec) Fibre Channel (FC) array designed for both direct attached and SAN attached storage. The system features a fully redundant architecture with drive intermixing (FC or SATA-2 disk drives), 8x 4 Gb FC ports, 4GB cache, application-oriented management, switched drive connectivity, and a maximum capacity of 112 disk drives. The StorageTek 6540 array is a ROHS-compliant, 4 GB/sec Fibre Channel (FC) array focused on large databases and high-performance computing. The system features a fully redundant architecture with drive intermixing (FC or SATA-2 disk drives), 8x 4 Gb FC ports, 16 GB cache, application-oriented management, switched drive connectivity, and a maximum capacity of 224 disk drives.
Key features in the modular storage line include:
Application Profiles and Profile Cloning -- Application Profiles speed deployment of application specific configurations with automated provisioning. More than 15 profiles are included with the added flexibility of customizing existing profiles to better suit requirements. Sun's Profile Cloning reduces time to deploy through quick, simple configuration replication.
Instant-on Volumes & Dynamic Volume Configuration -- Virtually eliminates the time users have to wait to use new storage volumes, and enables fine-tuning application performance without disrupting critical business operations. With Instant-on Volumes, Sun customers gain immediate access to storage capacity. Additionally, every volume characteristic from RAID level to replication mode and controller assignment may be changed non-disruptively, delivering the flexibility to help ensure optimum application performance.
Common Storage Modules & Management -- With common management, common storage modules, and the ability to replicate data across generations, Sun customers can maximize use of their critical IT resources and protect investments while lowering overall costs.
Broad suite of data protection software and services -- Protects data from local, site and regional outages while conserving costly disk space and includes replication, snapshot and full-volume copy. Also facilitates offline data analysis and testing with full volume copies for complete system availability.
High availability architecture with world-class service and support -- With a fully redundant (N+1) architecture and award-winning service and support, users can trust Sun to provide complete system availability.
Sun also announced that the Storage Performance Council (SPC) vendor-independent audited and certified results show the StorageTek 6140 array set the world record for SPC-2 price/performance and delivered the best performance in its class. The measurement was run on a StorageTek 6140 array in conjunction with a Sun Fire(TM) X4200 server and delivered 686.90 SPC-2 MBPS performance and an SPC-2 price/performance of $124.36 SPC-2 $/MBPS (TM), ASU Capacity of 2,147.484 GB, Total Cost of $85,424, Auth# B00008. Full configuration details as well as results can be found at the SPC: Web site .
Additional technology specifications on the StorageTek 6140 and 6540 arrays are located at:
its Web site.
The StorageTek 6140 array starts at $25,000 USD and is available from Sun and its authorized resellers. The StorageTek 6540 array starts at $85,000 USD and will be available in the next 30 days. 