Disclaimer: I recently attended Dell Technologies World 2019. My flights, accommodation and conference pass were paid for by Dell Technologies via the Media, Analysts and Influencers program. There is no requirement for me to blog about any of the content presented and I am not compensated in any way for my time at the event. Some materials presented were discussed under NDA and don’t form part of my blog posts, but could influence future discussions.
Dell EMC Unity XT
As part of their storage announcements this week, Dell EMC announced the new Unity XT. Here’s a photo of one from the show floor at Dell Technologies World.
There are two variants of Unity XT, and you can grab the All-Flash data sheet here, and the Hybrid data sheet here. The spec sheet for both flavours is here. There are 8 models in all, and the smallest one in hybrid and all-flash won’t support NVMe (to keep the cost down for smaller customers). I’m told the largest model will scale up to 1500 drives, with Dell EMC revisiting the kind of specs that they had with the VNX 7600 and 8000 range.
From an efficiency perspective, Dell EMC are claiming
- Up to 5:1 data reduction
- 85% system efficiency
Wait, what about performance? Dell EMC are telling me the Unity XT delivers up to:
- 2x More Performance (IOPS)*
- 75% Lower Latency**
- 67% Faster performance than competition***
Like all performance claims, there are a few caveats:
- *100% reads, 100% writes & mixed workload – compared to previous generation
- ** @ 150K IOPS, 8K block size, 70/30 R/W ratio
- *** Compared to leading vendor
Dell Storage and the Cloud
It’s a multi-cloud world. And Dell EMC have been working to make sure their involved in various cloud things, including:
- Dell Technologies Cloud Platform (certified with Unity and PowerMax);
- Cloud Data Services;
- Cloud Connected Systems; and
- Cloud Data Insights.
Dell Technologies Cloud Platform
This was a reasonably significant announcement, and I’ll be covering it in a separate article.
Cloud Data Services
Dell EMC are also offering a range of storage and protection data services available in the public cloud provider of your choice.
Dell EMC Cloud Storage Services
Dell EMC have announced that Early Access is coming soon for Dell EMC Cloud Storage Services Integrated with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for File.
[image courtesy of Dell EMC]
- Ideal for HPC applications, analytics, media and entertainment, life sciences, etc.
- Backed by enterprise SLAs
- Pay-as-you-use pricing
- Proactive monitoring, maintenance, and hardware life- cycle management
They’ve also announced that Dell EMC Cloud Storage Services is now available.
[image courtesy of Dell EMC]
- Fast – High-speed, low latency connection to the cloud;
- Trusted – Durable, persistent storage with up to 6-9’s availability and enterprise grade security; and
- Flexible – Control your data with multi-cloud agility; Independently scale capacity and compute.
DR Services
The cool thing about cloud data services is that you can do cool things with them, such as using VMC on AWS for Automated Disaster Recovery
[image courtesy of Dell EMC]
Dell EMC tell me it’s a:
- Seamlessly integrated VMware environment;
- Delivering automated DR operations;
- With enterprise-grade, pay- as-you-go DRaaS;
- You only pay for compute in the cloud when failover occurs; and
- This gives you access to lower RPOs and RTOs
It’s a multi-cloud world though, so you can also access multiple cloud providers for Disaster Recovery.
[image courtesy of Dell EMC]
The benefits of this approach are numerous, including:
- No secondary DC to manage;
- Enterprise-grade infrastructure;
- A Pay-as-you-go model;
- Only pay for compute in the cloud in the event of a failure; and
- Lower RPOs.
And it wouldn’t be multi-cloud capable if you couldn’t do other cool stuff like workload migration, analytics and more:
- Flexible, multi-cloud support;
- No vendor lock-in with data independent of the cloud;
- Leverage cloud(s) of choice based on application needs;
- Reduce risk with centralised, durable storage; and
- Fast, low cost set up – no additional infrastructure to setup or manage.
Cloud Data Insights
Proactively monitor and manage infrastructure and data with intelligent cloud-based analytics. With CloudIQ you get access to a few neat things, including:
Predictive Modelling
- Capacity Forecasting
- Competing Workload Analysis
Accelerated Resolution
- 3X Faster Insight
- Performance Anomaly Detection
Broader Support
- Primary Storage Portfolio
- VMware
- Connectrix
- Isilon and PowerVault*
[image courtesy of Dell EMC]
Dell EMC ClarityNow
- Single pane of glass view of all file and object storage;
- Accelerated scan and indexing of unstructured data;
- High-speed search across heterogeneous storage;
- Detailed reporting with chargeback views; and
- Data mobility for self-service archive in cloud.
[image courtesy of Dell EMC]
Thoughts and Further Reading
The Unity XT is an evolution of the Unity line, rather than a revolutionary array. Dell EMC are doing all the things you’d expect them to do with their midrange line, including improving performance and adding support for NVMe on most of the models. I imagine people still have questions about the breadth of Dell EMC’s storage portfolio, with a range of products available from Unity to SC to XtremIO to PowerMax. There’s also Isilon dominating the file options, and ECS delivering some interesting object capabilities. It’s clear there’s still some room for consolidation, but I think it’s smart that Dell EMC have stuck with the “portfolio company” line. Instead of having too many options, the idea is that they can see you exactly what you want. They are, after all, in the business of making money. And if people want to keep buying Compellent, then Dell EMC are going to keep selling it to them. At least in the near term.
The Cloud Data Services announcements are also interesting. I’ve seen plenty of those cloud-native folks question why you’d want something like Isilon running on GCP. But those people aren’t really the ones who’l’ benefit from these types of solutions. Rather, it’s the enterprise who’ve built up particular workloads that rely on file, but still need to shift some of those workloads to a public cloud provider. Remember, not every tech company goes out and builds products without having a user base that has asked for said products. Dell EMC are very much in the camp of not doing things without having a quantifiable appetite from the customer base.
I’m glad I don’t work in a job where I have to manage lots of storage devices anymore. Because I’m not so sure I’d like to do it on my mobile phone. But the ability to view the health of these devices via an app is appealing. Sure, you’re not going to necessarily want to use element managers on your phone, but whne you need to know that status of something without diving too deep, something like CloudIQ becomes super useful. As does the ability to see all of your devices in one place with ClarityNow.
I didn’t hear anything revolutionary in Dell EMC’s storage announcements this year, but they continue to stay the course, and they’re setting the scene for bigger things to come. For another perspective, you can read Max’s thoughts on the storage announcements here. I’m looking forward to digging in to what Dell Technologies Cloud really means, and hope to have something out on that in the next week or so.