New network-attached storage (NAS) family designed to efficiently manage digital data explosion: To address explosive data growth plaguing businesses, government and research institutions, SGI today unveiled the SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS family focused on making high-performance storage technology easier to use.
At the heart of the SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS family is SGI's highly efficient XFS file system, repurposed for NAS appliance simplicity, and SGI InfiniteStorage Appliance Manager, a new graphical-user interface for optimizing storage resources, managing growth and allowing the set-up of base NAS configurations in less than 20 minutes. As a result, the new SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS family is designed to efficiently scale in storage capacity, file directory size and performance by providing base platform options that can support the exponential data growth for today's business, scientific and digital media applications. "Customers have stated they need better performance and reduced complexity from their NAS solutions, and the new SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS family is a direct and powerful response to that need," said Bo Ewald, CEO of SGI. "In the performance portion of the enterprise -- the revenue-generating side of the business where companies conduct their R&D -- we see growing demand for compute and storage solutions that deliver HPC performance and scalability. But customers also want us to make those solutions easier than ever to use. That's what we've done with SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS -- a high-performance, scalable NAS family with enterprise-class ease of management." The University of Utah's Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute (
www.sci.utah.edu/) recently installed a 115TB SGI InfiniteStorage virtualized data management solution based on NAS to help faculty, students and research staff strategically access information essential to their projects -- a growing challenge in an environment where researchers in multiple disciplines work with the same source data, often at the same time. "The new SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS solutions will make it even easier to introduce the benefits of shared storage," said Dr. Steven Parker, an assistant professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah and a long-time member of the SCI Institute, an internationally recognized leader in visualization, scientific computing, and image analysis. "Our experience with past SGI InfiniteStorage NAS solutions has shown us that SGI understands large data, including requirements for scalability, management, and expandability as driven by our users' data needs." SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS Family The new SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS family builds on the success of previous generations of SGI storage. The SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS 5000 and 7000 Series NAS solutions give users expanded functionality and enable support of a broader range of storage options. For smaller groups and teams, the SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS 2000 and 500 NAS solutions offer the same high-end functionality, advanced Appliance Manager software, and scalability in platforms tailored for department and workgroup deployments, respectively. The SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS 1000 NAS Gateway completes the family with a solution that fully leverages existing storage investments and allows users to quickly introduce the benefits of a NAS approach for storage sharing and management. SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS solutions are ideal for areas of enterprise HPC including database transactions, data mining, media rich on-line social networks, departmental consolidation and vertical market applications including media production, oil and gas exploration, scientific and engineering modeling, business intelligence, satellite and medical imagery. Full Functionality with Ease of an Appliance In the past, high-performance NAS solutions have required storage experts that are familiar with the complexities of storage setup and management. The SGI Appliance Manager-included with each SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS solution-lets even novice NAS users avoid complexity without sacrificing the ability to tune storage systems based on unique requirements. Initial setup is fast and easy, requiring minutes instead of days. Ongoing monitoring and management are also streamlined with the visual, intuitive interface of the SGI Appliance Manager. Features such as automated storage asset discovery and configuration guidance simplify initial deployment as well as future storage capacity expansion. Granular resolution guidance and storage utilization tools also help reduce manageability costs. Consolidation with Optimized Storage Performance The SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS solutions bring together mixed operating systems and a broad range of storage technologies within a common framework for simplifying storage access and sharing. While all NAS platforms theoretically introduce the efficiencies of consolidation, the SGI solutions stand out with:
- Exceptionally fast NFS and CIFS write and read performance, allowing SGI solutions to serve the most demanding applications.
- The SGI XFS filesystem, giving the NAS world a highly efficient and low-latency foundation while extracting more performance out of the storage system.
- Advanced functionality, such as NFS version 4, bringing high-end capabilities to the entire line of SGI NAS platforms.
"Today's businesses are experiencing incredible growth of digital information in the form of unstructured, file-level data. Administrators who have traditionally deployed general-purpose, direct-attached storage are seeking more cost-effective and efficient alternatives to store and manage vast amounts of files for a growing set of users," said Brad Nisbet, Program Manager, Storage Systems at IDC. "Networked storage solutions like the SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS family which provides ease of use, multi-protocol file sharing, and greater capacities, performance and scalability over general purpose solutions are helping to reduce the pain associated with managing file-rich environments." Up-Front Affordability and Low Total Cost of Ownership The new family of SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS solutions gives customers the ability to start simple. Expandability -- without forklift upgrades -- protects the initial investments and extends the lifetime of the platforms. Operating efficiencies, including low CPU utilization and reduced power and cooling requirements, also minimize expenditures and translate into long-term savings. "Our team of storage experts continues to improve the world of consolidated, centralized storage," said Raj Das, vice president of storage at SGI." SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS gets the best performance and value possible out of today's storage technologies. Additionally, the new family of solutions underscores our commitment to innovation for the NAS market -- the unmatched combination of factory integration, bundled management tools, and scalability make them excellent long-term solutions for HPC and performance-oriented business customers." Availability The SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS family includes an expanded range of storage solutions and the new Appliance Manager. Users can choose solutions that range from a 3TB compact 2U platform to a high-end solution with nearly half a petabyte of storage. The SGI InfiniteStorage NEXIS NAS family will be available starting in Q4 of calendar year 2007. For more detailed descriptions of the NEXIS NAS family, go to its Web site.
