X-IO expands and updates portfolio of award-winning Intelligent Storage Element storage arrays

After extensive research and development, X-IO Technologies today announced a major update to its award winning storage technology. The new generation of architecture will underpin X-IO’s expanding portfolio whilst delivering all flash array performance and operational simplicity with the capacity availability of traditional storage.

Gavin McLaughlin, vice president of worldwide marketing for X-IO Technologies, said: “We are delighted to launch our third generation ISE storage architecture (G3). This is another important step forward in our successful vision to help customers resolve the three key challenges of storage: 100% performance at 100% capacity utilisation, reliability without operational overhead, and the industry’s leading balance of cost, capacity, performance and risk.”

X-IO designed the new ISE G3 solutions for heavier workloads from media and other applications in database, virtualised and cloud environments, which demand more performance, more connectivity and operational simplicity from storage.

Randy Kerns, senior strategist and analyst at the Evaluator Group, said: “X-IO’s latest product expansion offers a compelling total cost of ownership model that factors the best of both flash and spinning media. Enterprises are increasingly focusing on the value of a ‘guaranteed lifespan’ to reduce overall cost and risk and deliver the greatest possible return on their storage investments.”

Bill Kleyman, director of strategy and innovation at MTM Technologies, an X-IO partner, concurred: “Many organisations are looking for a new way to control the vast amount of data that cloud, IoT, and other applications are creating. Underpinning these organisations are data centres that are trying to make their environment more efficient whilst also continuously improving the experience of the end-user. By diversifying their storage offering, X-IO can really impact a number of new use-cases including virtual application delivery, cloud-based workloads, and even big data.”

McLaughlin announced that the company would update all models within the current ISE range to the G3 variant. “Our clients already have the fastest, lowest cost and highest utilisation of any data storage solution,” he said. “Now they will get faster processors, more RAM and more software features, enabling up to 65 per cent increased performance, 40Gb/s iSCSI connectivity for all models, and new features such as Quality of Service and Thin Provisioning to optimise efficiency.”

The company will continue to offer an inclusive 5-year warranty as standard, McLaughlin said. “We are proud of our performance record with some of the industry’s lowest operational overhead. Our proprietary self-healing technology keeps maintenance costs low, a major feature for cost-conscious clients that don’t have large budgets for IT staffing.”

ISE 780 Hybrid Array Delivers Performance of Flash with 6X the Capacity
The expanded portfolio of ISE disk and hybrid solutions features the new ISE 780 hybrid storage array. As with all ISE hybrid solutions, the ISE 780 array provides applications with flash performance but without the typical associated capacity constraints.

· With 6.4TB of Intelligent Adaptive Flash storage and additional 28.8TB in disk capacity, users can either utilise the ISE 780 as an All Flash Array or utilise X-IO’s patented Continuous Adaptive Data Placement (CADP) technology to automatically deliver the appropriate I/O performance from the most appropriate media.
· Customers can combine the optimal mix of traditional and flash storage technologies to accelerate applications for highly virtualised environments, particularly virtual desktop infrastructures. The new, larger hybrid array is also ideal for organisations that demand simplified, hypervisor-integrated storage with outstanding predictability, efficiency and quality.

New ISE Architecture Designed for Enterprises that Demand More
The third generation ISE HDD and hybrid storage products offer a 65% performance improvement, increased connectivity and more choice of capacity options. Additionally, they continue to build on X-IO’s value proposition to deliver their rated performance for the entire life cycle, regardless of available capacity, with self-healing storage and intelligent use of flash technology. The third-generation ISE architecture also enhances manageability and solution integration for all ISE storage products to help enterprises increase efficiency and further lower costs:
· ISE firmware version 3.1 provides more efficient management and control of storage resources with added iSCSI support for heterogeneous connectivity, quality of service capabilities and thin provisioning for greater flexibility of storage allocations.
· Expanded solution integration includes simplified administration in virtualisation and cloud environments are delivered by integration with VMware vRealize Operations, VMware vSphere® API for Storage Awareness (VASA), and vSphere Web Client; and new OpenStack cinder driver.
· New features in ISE Manager Suite 4.1 software include enhanced dashboards; instant integration and support for emerging technologies; and storage resource management.

Russell Blackburn, senior director of cloud and data centre solutions EMEA, Westcon Group said: “X-IO is executing on its vision to deliver an optimal blend of application performance without sacrificing cost and manageability. We believe the new ISE storage portfolio will prove to be an ultra-reliable storage solution that just works and lowers costs over many years, which frees our customers to focus on improving business processes.”