Dell Compellent, FluidFS, and Hadoop Updates Announced

Dell is announcing new storage solutions and expanded analytics for greater performance and lower expenses. Beginning with Dell Compellent solutions, Dell has made substantial updates to their storage portfolio aimed at performance-hungry applications. Dell is also implementing their Compellent Storage Center 6.4 array software which has been optimized for data-intensive workloads. The new Dell Compellent Flash Optimized Solution offers the first storage solution in its class with intelligent data placement across multiple types of flash technologies or in combination with traditional drives. Dell is also now offering the super-dense Compellent SC280 5U shelf that provides up to 336TB of storage. The 5U footprint significantly reduces data center space, power and cooling requirements for the number of drives stored inside versus the same capacity found in multiple 2U shelves.

Dell is announcing new storage solutions and expanded analytics for greater performance and lower expenses. Beginning with Dell Compellent solutions, Dell has made substantial updates to their storage portfolio aimed at performance-hungry applications. Dell is also implementing their Compellent Storage Center 6.4 array software which has been optimized for data-intensive workloads. The new Dell Compellent Flash Optimized Solution offers the first storage solution in its class with intelligent data placement across multiple types of flash technologies or in combination with traditional drives. Dell is also now offering the super-dense Compellent SC280 5U shelf that provides up to 336TB of storage. The 5U footprint significantly reduces data center space, power and cooling requirements for the number of drives stored inside versus the same capacity found in multiple 2U shelves.

Dell’s Compellent Flash Optimized Solution is an industry first to offer flash tiering, but not in the way most would initially think. The new Compellent tiering solution leverages SLC NAND for hot write-heavy data and MLC NAND for colder read-heavy data that is split into an 80% MLC / 20% SLC mix for most configurations. This significantly reduces storage-related costs by as much as 75% compared to SLC-only solutions, and it does so with enterprise-class features and support for high-performance and data-intensive workloads. This technology is an extension of Compellent’s existing tiering abilities which automatically move data between different spindle performance levels, with the latest addition allowing it to differentiate between NAND endurance levels.

Dell Fluid File System (FluidFS) v3 offers customers enterprise-class file storage featuring improved performance at 1/3 the cost of the market leader. FluidFS v3 will first be available on the Dell Compellent FS8600 later this year, and it can support 2PB in a single namespace for super-high density. The new release is policy-driven and features variable block data reduction, de-duplication and compression of redundant data.

Dell is also announcing plans to expand Hadoop capabilities. Dell is already testing a solution based on Intel’s Distribution of Apache Hadoop (IDH) which focuses on performance and security. On top of that, Dell Crowbar includes integration to Hadoop now, and it will also integrate with IDH when Dell launches their IDH solution. Another integration with Dell Crowbar is with Dell Cloudera Hadoop Solution which speeds up open-source cloud development, deployment and updates. Cloudera has some new features including search capabilities to add full-text indexing to data stored in Hadoop or Hbase.

Availability

The new Dell Compellent Storage Center 6.4, Flash Optimized Solution and SC280 enclosure have planned availability for Q3 2013. Dell FluidFS v3 has planned availability for early Q4 2013.

UPDATE 10/8/13 – Dell Compellent Adds MLC SSD Tier – Bests 15K HDDs on Price and Performance

Dell Compellent