Rapidly growing data volumes and the difficulty of archiving and accessing them are the challenges at the heart of data protection and big data management. San Jose-based data protection specialist Quantum believes three new products it released this week are the answer.
Quantum (NYSE:QTM) has unveiled the DXi8500 deduplication appliance, Scalar i6000 tape library and Quantum Vision 4.1 software for federated management and analytics of both tape and disk systems.
“Quantum’s unique combination of disk, tape and management solutions for enterprise data protection stands unmatched in delivering value to customers worldwide,” said Rob Clark, senior vice president of the Disk and Tape Data Protection Group at Quantum. “A recent independent analyst survey of Quantum customers found that for every $1 invested in Quantum solutions, customers saw $4.72 in return. To achieve that kind of ROI requires a continual, aggressive pursuit of innovation.”
The DXi 8500 incorporates Quantum’s latest-generation DXi 2.1 deduplication software. Quantum said its purpose-built, tiered data storage design allows it to achieve inline performance of up to 8.8 TB/hour. It also now scales from 40 TB to 320 TB. Additionally, all licenses are provided in the base price, including deduplication, replication, direct tape creation, OST, VTL, NAS and DXi Accent for hybrid mode deduplication. The latter gives enterprise customers the ability to distribute deduplication operations to media servers, reducing local area network or wide area network traffic for backup, disaster recovery and direct tape creation. Quantum’s new vmPRO software has also been added to the DXi 8500, giving the appliance the ability to protect both physical and virtual environments.
The DXi 8500 will be available beginning in December, with a suggested retail price of $300,000.
Quantum has added dual robotics to the Scalar i6000 tape library, giving it the ability to provide continual availability of enterprise data — including media archives, backup sets and big data content — without reducing library capacities. To that end, it has also added the Active Vault feature, which gives users the ability to store vaulted tapes inside the Scalar i6000 chassis. Quantum said that since the vaulted media remains within the library, it eliminates media handling, reduces application licensing costs and allows enterprises to keep media safe, accessible and managed. The Active Vault feature draws upon Quantum’s Extended Data Life Management (EDLM) to automate data integrity checking.
The Scalar i6000 tape library will also be available beginning in December, with a suggested retail price of $50,000. The Active Vault feature is currently available for a suggested retail price of $10,000.
Quantum Vision 4.1 brings it all together by providing improved multi-site advanced reporting. It consolidates management across different locations, systems and tiers for both disk and tape. Quantum has added DXi Advanced Reporting, which is synchronized for multiple DXi systems, no matter where they’re located. Quantum has also added new graphical analytic tools.
The Vision 4.1 software is currently available. The software plus one Scalar or DXi license has a suggested retail price of $5,000. Quantum said additional Scalar and DXi licenses are $2,750.
“With the latest DXi8500, Scalar and management announcements, Quantum continues to broadly advance the features and capabilities of their data protection storage solutions, reaching well beyond single tricks or technologies,” said Jeff Boles, senior analyst with the Taneja Group. “The net-net is that their portfolio continues to offer enterprises better integrated protection solutions that span more locations, types of clients and potential storage needs than any other single data protection storage company on the market.”