Fujitsu makes storage bullet-proof for exponential data growth

By Phumeza Tontsi for CoCre8
Munich, 29 Jul 2014

Fujitsu enables storage professionals to provide and maintain excellent service levels to lines of business, even when facing exponential data growth. The latest enhancements of the ETERNUS DX S3 systems, in combination with the new version of ETERNUS SF V16.1 storage management software, improve business continuity and fault resiliency to maximise uptime and availability, while additional automation features provide a stepping stone to align storage resources with business priorities.

Exponential data growth increases the amount of data hosted by individual storage systems, which consequently exposes businesses to a higher impact from planned or unplanned system downtime. The ETERNUS Storage Cluster technology offers application-transparent failover from one storage array to another in the event that one system stops performing.

The failover can be triggered automatically in case of system failures, or can be executed manually for maintenance or minor failures. By mirroring data in real-time and switching transparently from one system to the other, the data assets are completely protected and business processes are safe from any interruption. There is no need to introduce a storage virtualisation layer.

The adoption of larger disk capacities in a RAID increases the risk of data loss during daily operation. The rebuild time of a disk in a productive system can take many hours or days, and this duration will rise further when new, higher capacity disks become available. Consequently, this increases the probability that a second disk failure can occur within the RAID group before the rebuild is completed, putting data at risk. The new ETERNUS Fast Recovery function uses reserved areas on the disks within a RAID instead of using an exclusive hot spare disk. For this reason, write operations can be spread over many disks reducing the rebuild time by a factor of 10 [1]. For example, the rebuild time for a 2TB disk can be reduced by a quarter - from six hours to 90 minutes.

The huge amount of data in one storage system can cause input/output performance conflicts between various applications. The automated ETERNUS Quality of Service (auto QOS) feature enables storage professionals to assure the needed response time for the most critical business data once the system is under high load. With the new enhancements, administrators can choose to either pick one of three priority levels or set a target response time for dedicated data volumes. If the requested response time cannot be reached through bandwidth allocation, the volume is automatically moved to a faster storage tier, for example, by using solid-state drives (SSDs).

This is the first implementation on the market where QOS management comprises storage tiering in a fully integrated way. By simply setting target response times, the system undertakes all optimisation steps, complex tuning efforts are reduced to a minimum, and service levels can be tailored to business needs.

Supporting quote:

Frank Reichart, Director of Storage Product Marketing, Global Marketing, Fujitsu
"Incredible data growth has created huge challenges for storage professionals in guaranteeing uninterrupted access to business data and maintaining differentiated server levels to various lines of business. Based on a business-centric storage approach, Fujitsu continuously introduces innovation for its ETERNUS storage products, enabling the company to provide better service levels while reducing operational efforts and costs."

Pricing and availability:

Fujitsu ETERNUS DX storage systems and ETERNUS SF storage management software are globally available via Fujitsu and its channel partners. Pricing and specifications vary according to country.

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Fujitsu

Fujitsu is the leading Japanese ICT company offering a full range of technology products, solutions and services. Approximately 162 000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. Fujitsu uses its experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with its customers. Fujitsu (TSE: 6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.8 trillion yen (US$46 billion) for the fiscal year ended 31 March 2014. For more information, please see http://www.fujitsu.com.

Fujitsu EMEAI

In Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India, Fujitsu is the leading IT infrastructure provider with a presence in all key markets serving large, medium-sized and small businesses. The company offers a full portfolio of IT products, business solutions and services, ranging from workplace systems to data centre solutions, managed services, and cloud-based software and solutions. In CEMEA&I, Fujitsu employs approximately 13 000 people and is part of the global Fujitsu Group. For more information, please see: ts.fujitsu.com/aboutus.

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