Isilon Upgrades OneFS, SyncIQ for Scale-Out NAS

SEATTLE -- June 9, 2009 -- Isilon Systems, the proven leader in scale-out NAS, today announced two major software upgrades that significantly enhance the applicability of scale-out NAS for enterprise data storage requirements. With new versions of its OneFS operating system and SyncIQ data replication software application, Isilon brings to market increased storage efficiency, scalability and data protection for mission-critical, file-based applications, enabling enterprises to maximize the value of their critical information while minimizing the business risk associated with large and rapidly growing data stores. Isilon also today announced that J. Craig Venter Institute, Rhythm and Hues and Deakin University are among customers using the new solutions to power a wide range of file-based data applications.

"Enterprise data storage requirements are rapidly converging with the hallmark benefits of scale-out NAS as the continuing explosion of file-based data growth, increasing reliance on virtualization, and unrelenting pressure to reduce capital and operational expenditures drive enterprises further away from the limitations of traditional architectures," said Sam Grocott, senior director of product management, Isilon Systems. "Building on the broad expansion of our hardware platform announced in March, Isilon continues to advance its leadership and innovation in scale-out NAS by delivering solutions that enable greater efficiency, scalability and data protection to meet the file-based storage challenges of today's enterprise businesses."

Fueled by continuous innovation in its award-winning operating system, OneFS 5.5 delivers more than 5 petabytes (PB) of capacity, 45 Gigabytes per second (Gbps) of aggregate performance, and 1.7 million IOPS of performance in a single file system. OneFS 5.5 further extends the enterprise-readiness of Isilon's leading scale-out NAS solutions by seamlessly integrating with enterprise IT environments to deliver a robust set of data protection, security and business continuance features. With Isilon IQ and OneFS 5.5, customers can increase application performance and business productivity, while reducing storage acquisition and management costs.

In addition, Isilon's new SyncIQ 2.5 provides increased speed, intelligence and efficiency, enabling fast, highly-reliable data replication for enterprise IT environments.

"Enterprise businesses continue to face two major challenges accentuated by the current economic climate - decreasing budgets and increasing needs for greater storage capacity," said Pushan Rinnen, research director, Gartner. "While traditional architectures were not designed to deliver cost-effective scalability and ongoing ease of management, scale-out NAS offers non-disruptive scalability and flexibility in capacity and performance management for file-based data. These unique characteristics make scale-out NAS a compelling alternative to traditional storage, especially as file-based data growth continues to drive enterprise data storage priorities."Isilon's latest version of its OneFS operating system software extends the scalability of a single Isilon IQ cluster to 144 nodes, delivering more than 5 PB of capacity, 45 Gbps of aggregate performance and 1.7 million IOPS of performance in a single file system to accelerate a wide spectrum of file-based data applications. OneFS 5.5 includes a new version of the FlexProtect data protection application, providing Isilon's industry-leading levels of data protection with 50 percent less overhead, increasing system efficiency while reducing storage acquisition and management costs. The new version of OneFS also features enhanced storage monitoring and reporting functionality as well as native Windows Active Directory and byte-range locking to increase enterprise applicability. Meanwhile, Isilon's SyncIQ 2.5 brings to market significantly increased speed and efficiency for replication of file-based data.

"As the scope of our research initiatives has expanded, we've experienced a dramatic increase in the amount of genomic data that must be efficiently and reliably accessed, analyzed and archived," said Eddy Navarro, storage team lead, J. Craig Venter Institute. "With Isilon IQ and the new OneFS 5.5, we have the flexibility to 'pay as we grow,' allowing us to seamlessly expand our storage only as need dictates, while still maintaining the high performance necessary to power our data-intensive workflow and advance our research."

"Enterprises increasingly need to distribute large, mission-critical data sets to multiple shared storage systems and teams in multiple locations," said Tom Shearer, principal, Talon Data. "With SyncIQ 2.5, Isilon has raised the bar for network and storage resource efficiency and availability, providing customers with a truly enterprise-class data replication solution."

Pricing and Availability

Isilon's OneFS 5.5 and SyncIQ 2.5 are both immediately available and are free-of-charge with an active support contract.About Isilon Systems

Isilon Systems is the proven leader in scale-out NAS. Isilon's clustered storage and data management solutions drive unique business value for customers by maximizing the performance of their mission-critical applications, workflows and processes. Isilon enables enterprises and research organizations worldwide to manage large and rapidly growing amounts of file-based data in a highly scalable, easy-to-manage, and cost-effective way. Information about Isilon can be found at http://www.isilon.com.