Dell EMC ScaleIO.Next Announced

Dell EMC has announced the next version of their data center SDS/HCI solution dubbed ScaleIO.Next. Of course we're already big fans of ScaleIO, after spending months running it through our testing both in HCI and two-layer modes. And for anyone who follows the podcast, this news isn't a huge surprise as we talked with Boaz Palgi about ScaleIO roadmap in early March. ScaleIO.Next will include several new features, highlighted by space efficiency, which will further drive value for ScaleIO deployments. 

Dell EMC has announced the next version of their data center SDS/HCI solution dubbed ScaleIO.Next. Of course we're already big fans of ScaleIO, after spending months running it through our testing both in HCI and two-layer modes. And for anyone who follows the podcast, this news isn't a huge surprise as we talked with Boaz Palgi about ScaleIO roadmap in early March. ScaleIO.Next will include several new features, highlighted by space efficiency, which will further drive value for ScaleIO deployments. 

Space efficiency in this case includes inline compression, thin provisioning and flash-based snapshots. The new snapshot tools include the creation of more snapshot copies, automating snap management and the addition of unrestricted refresh/restore capabilities. For VMware environments, ScaleIO.Next also will fully support vVols. The platform also provides volume migration for deployments that want to take advantage of lower cost media (hybrid configs or HDD only) for aging or lower priority data. Data services like these are a natural progression as a software stack matures. ScaleIO had already done a great job of being simple to deploy with a fantastic performance profile; now ScaleIO.Next brings more enterprise ready features to the table making it more in tune with what traditional storage buyers expect.

While ScaleIO can run on any hardware, there are certain benefits to having access to a server team in-house. To that end Dell EMC will be introducing ScaleIO Ready Nodes that run on PowerEdge 14G hardware. While it's still a bit early, all indications are that ScaleIO.Next customers can expect an even more impressive performance profile on these servers as ScaleIO is ready to take full advantage of NVMe SSDs for storage and NVDIMMs to accelerate metadata. 

Availability

ScaleIO.Next has planned global availability in the second half of 2017.

ScaleIO Product Page

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