New array could bring flash into government enterprises
Connecting state and local government leaders
NetApp's all-flash EF540, which can perform more than 300,000 IOPS, is designed for the type of business-critical applications common in government data centers.
It’s a well-documented fact that flash drives outperform traditional hard drives in many ways. With no moving parts, they are almost as quick as system memory, generate less heat and are less prone to breakdowns, especially those caused by environmental factors like vibration.
But although the public sector has embraced flash technology in some areas, especially with rugged mobile devices, agencies have been slow to make bring flash drives into data centers. Cost is certainly a factor in that, but so too is the lack of a good form factor for chaining flash drives for use with big data applications.
Netapp is looking to change that with the release of the EF540 Flash Array, designed for the business-critical applications common in government data centers.
The EF540, built on the proven SANtricity operating system, is the industry’s first flash array to combine consistent extreme performance with enterprise-class high availability. Designed for performance-driven applications, the EF540 delivers more than 300,000 input/output operations/sec and sub-millisecond data access in a fault-tolerant architecture.
It can eliminate storage over-provisioning and can reduce costs associated with space utilization, power consumption, and cooling, the company said. Business-critical database applications can run up to 500 percent faster on an EF540 than in traditional storage environments, delivering instant response times and enterprise-class reliability.
“Flash changes everything by transforming the speed of business,” said Manish Goel, NetApp’s executive vice president of product operations. “However, enterprise imperatives for global scale, efficiency and reliability remain the same. NetApp’s approach to flash removes the compromise from consideration, offering customers the best of all worlds.”
Goel added that the new product extends the comprehensive NetApp enterprise flash portfolio, which maximizes the value of flash across the entire computer, network and storage stack, enabling the flexibility to choose the best approach to unique workloads.
The NetApp EF540 flash array is available today. The company said it expects to release more flash-based, enterprise-level products, including an entire FlashRay product line, early next year.
NEXT STORY: DISA lays groundwork for implementing Windows 8