As applications and devices proliferate and produce a dizzying array of physical, virtualized, and highly distributed workloads, we see the explosion of raw data. Data has become more diverse than ever before – and it is now being created, processed, and stored everywhere, from edge to cloud. That data – if properly refined – holds a wealth of invaluable insights that give businesses the keys to greater competitive advantage, healthier outcomes, and rapid growth.
The massive explosion in data and rapid technology innovations gives Enterprise IT both a challenge and an opportunity in their digital transformation initiatives. IT is under increasing pressure to both manage complex, siloed data storage infrastructures and at the same time deliver simplicity and agility on the business front.
Dell EMC offers some of the best solutions to meet these conflicting requirements with the announcement of PowerStore, a modern storage appliance, a game-changing new platform that unlocks the power of data, regardless of its structure or location, helping customers adapt and transform their IT without disrupting current operations.
Dell EMC announces PowerStore storage appliance
On May 5, 2020, Dell EMC announced the availability of its latest storage innovation for the Data Era, PowerStore, a best-in-class 2RU storage appliance, that provides a data-centric, intelligent, and adaptable storage infrastructure that supports diverse requirements while simplifying operations. PowerStore is designed to meet modern high-performance storage requirements such as high-performance, support for diverse workloads, massive scalability, cost-effectiveness, operational efficiency, and mission-critical reliability. Built on a performance-optimized design with an end-to-end NVMe strategy, PowerStore delivers up to 7X time better performance than previous arrays and up to 3X times better response time.
Cisco MDS 9000 family of Storage networking solutions complement this performance by providing a fast, reliable network with persistent performance and low latency. By combining Dell EMC PowerStore, and the Cisco MDS 9000 family of products and technologies customers can continue to achieve innovative, flexible, and powerful NVMe storage, that can help transform infrastructure efficiency. All Cisco MDS switches are FC-NVMe enabled, which means that customers can continue to deploy their Fibre Channel networks and seamlessly use their legacy solutions with the newly launched PowerStore on the same storage network. Combined with superior support for network analytics and automation, customers can deploy the solutions that meet the performance requirements without costly re-architecture.
Read the press release here.
A note on Dell EMC – Cisco MDS partnership:
Cisco – Dell EMC has a long and trusted partnership that dates back 16+years. Dell EMC is a market leader in SAN storage and Cisco MDS is a market leader in SAN switching. With strong Executive alignment and vision, the two companies have been delivering integrated solutions over the years to address core customer challenges and deliver superior customer support and experience. Joint innovation Proof-points include VxBlock 1000, Vscale data Center architecture, and Connectrix MDS SAN.
Cisco MDS is jointly deployed with Dell EMC storage at many large enterprises. Cisco MDS solutions fit the needs of customers large and small. From the top of the rack switches to the industry’s largest MDS 9718 Director chassis, Cisco MDS offers solutions to meet all of Dell EMC’s customer’s needs. Cisco switches offer the simplicity of operations with features like auto-zoning and virtual SAN, as well as integration with superior tools like DCNM for SAN and SAN Insight for management and monitoring.
With a long, trusted relationship between Cisco and Dell EMC, customers are well supported for all their technical needs.
How Dell EMC PowerStore – Cisco MDS solution enables customers to achieve digital transformation and competitive edge?
Applications continue to exert tremendous pressure on SAN infrastructure. To keep up and stay competitive, customers are looking to invest in higher-performing storage and storage networking. As discussed earlier, combining the economic viability of Dell EMC PowerStore and the technological advancement of end-end NVMe over FC supported by PowerStore, there has never been a more compelling opportunity to upgrade SAN infrastructure with investment protection and support for 64G Fibre Channel performance.
Some top considerations customer face before committing to such a strategic investment
- Investment Protection: Cisco MDS switches offer continued support for all generations of Fibre Channel bandwidth – from 16Gbps to upcoming 64 Gbps ports – all within the same Director chassis, offering an unparalleled advantage to customers
- Day two operations: MDS switches enable monitoring and management automation for faster deployments, better insight in performance, and reduction in downtime.
- SAN Analytics: Cisco SAN Analytics provides real-time packet visibility into every transaction of SCSI and NVMe traffic natively within your SAN. This information can help you to solve performance problems proactively.
- End to end FC-NVMe support: All Cisco MDS switches support the latest in NVMe over Fibre Channel protocol, ensuring that all future deployments are supported.
- Is Cisco MDS 64G ready? All Cisco MDS 9700 Directors are 64G ready. The Directors can provide line-rate performance at 64G for all switch ports.
- Is there a need to “Rip and Replace” existing infrastructure? Is it potentially disruptive? MDS 9700 provides a non-disruptive upgrade from 16G to 32G and also to 64G in the same chassis without any forklift upgrades.
Conclusion
Modern applications demand data centers that deliver a superior experience to all environments, support future performance beyond the current architecture, and provide investment protection for the foreseeable future. The combination of Dell EMC PowerStore systems and Cisco MDS 9000 enables the scale, performance, visibility, and operational excellence needed for efficient deployment of all your next-generation workloads.
Learn more about Cisco storage networking solutions.
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Source: blogs.cisco.com Credit@ Ravi Balakrishnan
