EMC Gives Clariion A Refresh

EMC said it has added UltraPoint technology to its CX300-s, CX500-s, and CX700-s Fibre Channel and iSCSI models, which combines individual disk drive connectivity with advanced diagnostic capabilities.

Second, the vendor unveiled Virtual LUN (logical unit number) technology that enables customers to move data around more easily within a Clariion system to improve performance and capacity utilization.

"Virtual LUN technology will allow us to easily move data on a real-time basis, within a single CX array, while maintaining our service levels for application availability," said Astolfo Rueda, network administrator for Preston Gates and Ellis LLP, a 400-member law firm with 11 offices, in a statement. "We will be able to further implement tiered storage within the array by moving LUNs non-disruptively as the value of our data changes over time."

EMC also activated direct current (DC) power capabilities for the Network Equipment Building System (NEBS) Level 3 and European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) EN 300 386 standards to extend storage capabilities to customers in mobile and remote environments.

EMC also upgraded various software capabilities to support its midrange systems. SnapView, which offers split capabilities to create a consistent point-in-time copy across multiple volumes, and MirrorView/S, which ensures that inter-related volumes stay in synch and are recoverable in the event of a failure capabilities for business continuity, can now both support up to twice as many LUNs.

In addition, new SAN Copy/E software for the AX100/CX300 Clariion arrays and larger CX Series storage systems, streamlines data movement from the edge to the core for backup and recovery purposes.

EMC said that its four new disk libraries combine networked storage with ATA disks drives and tape library emulation, and can scale up to 348 terabytes of capacity. The libraries use active engine failover, which taps write-cache consolidation, a feature that EMC describes as aggregating small blocks of data into larger, 1-megabyte chunks for faster throughput backup, restores and archiving to tape.

The Clariion DL740 comes standard with two CX700 systems and is configured with dual-emulation engines. It can scale up to 348 terabytes and handle up to 1,200 megabytes per second. The DL720 comes standard with a dual-emulation engine configuration, and can scale up to 174 Tbytes. The DL710 replaces the DL700 model and has a more powerful emulation engine, EMC said. The DL310 replaces the DL300 model and delivers a 20% performance improvement, and scales as high as 37.5 Tbytes.

EMC also said its disk libraries are now interoperable with StorageTek PowderHorn, Sony PetaSite and ADIC i2000 tape libraries. The libraries had been certified previously with Quantum ATL P-Series and ATL 7100; StorageTek L-Series; and IBM 3590 and 3584 tape libraries. The Clariion DL line also supports DLT and SuperDLT (AIT, SAIT), LTO, LTO-2, StorageTek 9840 and 9940, and IBM 3590 physical tape drives.

UltraPoint will be generally available in September 2005; pricing begins around $15,000. The software enhancements and new disk libraries are available now. Pricing for the disk libraries starts at $110,000.