Dell PowerStore

PowerStore combines flexible scaling with ease of management that greatly complements analytics applications’ scale-up and scale-out deployment models. Advanced clustering technology allows PowerStore to scale system capacity (over 1PB raw per system) and provide additional processing power by clustering up to four appliances together. PowerStore provides a balanced approach to storage scalability, cost-effective scale-up capacity, and the ability to scale performance with an easy to manage deployment model as application needs continue to evolve.

PowerStore is engineered with the ability to support storage in multiple formats, bringing flexibility to a variety of applications, ranging from physical and virtual LUNs to containers to traditional files. It provides a single architecture for block, file, and VMware vVols leveraging the latest technologies to support a wide variety of traditional and modern workloads – from relational databases, to ERP and EHR apps, cloud native applications, and file-based workloads such as content repositories and home directories. This diverse support is achieved without sacrificing the cost-effective nature of midrange storage while providing cost-saving flexibility for IT to simplify and consolidate their infrastructure.

PowerStore brings data capacity efficiency, which greatly simplifies deployment planning. Dell PowerStore includes important capabilities for today’s modern analytic applications: thin provisioning, compression, deduplication, intelligent snapshots, data at rest encryption, replication and quality of service. The inline data reduction operations are carried out in hardware without affecting system performance. Customers receive a 5:1 data reduction ratio efficiency guarantee while simultaneously enjoying ultra-fast performance without compromise.

PowerStore comes with proven security features that meet corporate governance and compliance requirements and can prevent accidental or malicious intrusion. Key features include Data at Rest Encryption (D@RE) with key management, tamper-proof audit logs, and secure access controls. PowerStore provides additional data protection with array- based snapshots. Snapshots are point-in-time space-efficient copies of data and take seconds to create. With tight integration with VMware vSphere, PowerStore can take vVol-based snapshots directly from the PowerStore manager using a protection schedule or on-demand. The VM snapshot information is seen in both PowerStore and in vCenter.

PowerStore has innovative capabilities that unlock the power of an organisation’s most critical asset – its data. It has been designed to eliminate the typical trade-offs in performance, scalability and storage efficiency. Microsoft SQL Server 2019 includes expanded PolyBase features, called big data clusters, which enable companies to gain insights on data across a wide variety of data sources, a perfect fit for PowerStore. PowerStore’s single architecture for block, file, and vVols utilises the latest technologies to achieve these disparate objectives without sacrificing the cost-effective nature of midrange storage.

PowerStore is designed from the ground up to utilise the latest in storage and interface technologies in order to maximise Microsoft SQL Server performance and eliminate bottlenecks. Microsoft SQL Server environments span wide variety of requirements between dev/ops, mission critical workloads and legacy apps. PowerStore’s design uses NVMe to take full advantage of the speed and low latency of solid state devices, with greater device bandwidth and queue depth. Storage Class Memory (SCM) provides performance and endurance beyond those of flash and approaching the speed of DRAM.

Consolidating versions of Microsoft SQL Server onto a single platform yields great benefits in capacity efficiencies, business agility, security and availability. Advanced clustering enables PowerStore to scale system performance up to four appliances, while individual drive scaling addresses flexible capacity growth and resource balancing. PowerStore 500, the product line’s entry model, is capable of up to 2.4 transactions per minute in just a 2U format capable of 1.2PBe and can automatically balance storage and workloads to maximise system utility. With multiple models available, your Microsoft SQL Server data estate can be sized right from the start and scale to meet all future needs whether the initial deployment is small or large.

Dell stands behind every PowerStore system with the Future-Proof Program, including a 5:1 Data Reduction guarantee as well as Anytime Upgrades, the industry’s most comprehensive upgrade program that provides data-in-place upgrades within the same generation or next-generation of appliances, or scale-out of their existing environment with a second system equal to their current model. PowerStore nodes can be replaced non-disruptively while preserving existing drives and expansion enclosures, without requiring new licensing or additional purchases. With PowerStore, infrastructure can be modernised without a forklift upgrade, without downtime, and without impacting applications.