Isilon Simplifies Data Management For Enterprise IT

Isilon announced the sixth generation of its OneFS scale-out storage operating system and two new data management software applications, SmartPools and InsightIQ. With OneFS 6.0, SmartPools and InsightIQ, Isilon lets IT manage data, consolidate applications and scale out a single storage resource. IT continues to struggle to provide sufficient storage while controlling costs. Conserving expensive tier 1 storage is critical. Enterprises can pay five times more per TB for high-performance, tier1 storage than for tier 3 storage. The Isilon 5400S prices out at $45,000 per 5.4 TB node or $8,333 per TB, while the 36NL, Isilon's tier-three storage, prices out at $61,560 for 36 TB/node or $1,710 per TB.

With this announcement, Isilon lets enterprises move data among tiers, which can help preserve expensive storage by moving older data to a lower tier. Isilon's SmartPools creates a single file system and single point of management for all storage tiers, automatically aligning application needs with performance, capacity and cost to drive increased simplicity and efficiency across enterprise IT operations. With SmartPools, users can consolidate a wide range of applications onto a single storage resource, eliminating the need for manual data migration between multiple systems and accelerating data access for mission-critical business processes, while reducing storage costs and management.

InsightIQ provides an analytics platform that lets administrators identify and eliminate performance bottlenecks. This  maximizes system efficiency while minimizing high-performance storage requirements. InsightIQ delivers actionable insight into data usage trends, enabling IT to respond to changes in workflow requirements and user demand, improving resource utilization.

"We've tried traditional HSM applications and SmartPools is significantly easier to use - it makes data management simple," said David Hasson, director of IT, UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging. "Storage is a tricky thing, but with Isilon, we've unified three tiers into a single system, reducing management to less than an hour a week and improving operating efficiency."

Scale-out architectures let IT use massive amounts of conventional disk to form storage nodes that work in tandem. Isilon's Scale Out architecture breaks files into data blocks and then stripes them across storage nodes. Similar products exist from other vendors, such as IBM's XIV, but while IBM focuses on block-based data, Isilon also deals with file-based data. Isilon's OneFS 6.0 operating system, SmartPools data management application and InsightIQ system analytics application are all available beginning July 30th. One FS 6.0 will be available as an upgrade for existing customers and will be standard with all new Isilon system purchases. SmartPools is listed at $3,950-$9,950 per node, depending on node model. InsightIQ is listed at $1,950-$3,850 per node, depending on node model.