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Press Release
RACKABLE SYSTEMS LAUNCHES RAPIDSCALE™ STORAGE APPLIANCE FOR IMPROVED CLUSTERED STORAGE PERFORMANCE AND MANAGEMENT
-- Cluster File System Solution Delivers Industry Leading Scalability and Availability Needed
for Large Linux Data Center Deployments --
Milpitas, Calif., November 14, 2006 – Rackable
Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: RACK), a leading provider of servers and storage
products for large-scale data centers, today announced the immediate
availability of its new RapidScale™ SA3100 cluster file system
storage appliance, optimized for data-rich, Linux computing environments.
RapidScale appliances eliminate the performance bottlenecks inherent with legacy
Network Attached Storage (NAS) products, delivering a single file system solution
that scales nearly linearly in both capacity and performance. A perfect
match for large-scale Linux deployments often found in Internet and High Performance
Computing (HPC) environments, RapidScale's global name space allows customers
to realize improved manageability, storage utilization and availability over
existing solutions in the market.
Surpassing competing technologies, RapidScale
provides up to tens of Gigabytes per second of I/O throughput, ultimately
reducing wait time and improving overall storage performance. Each
RapidScale SA3100 appliance adds 8 TB of storage capacity and up to
200 MB/sec of performance. RapidScale systems leverage Rackable Systems’ proven
storage server hardware platform and cluster file system software from its recent
acquisition of Terrascale Technologies.
In addition to providing industry-leading
clustered storage performance and efficiency, the RapidScale HA software
option enables a novel, more comprehensive approach to data protection
by delivering two independent levels of RAID—battery-backed
hardware RAID inside each appliance along with storage cluster level RAID across
appliances. With RapidScale HA, redundancy is quickly restored—even in
the unlikely case of an appliance failure. RapidScale's dual-level RAID
capabilities provide IT administrators with the high availability needed to protect
mission-critical data.
"As data centers continue to scale their Rackable Systems Linux
server deployments, RapidScale appliances provide an ideal storage
complement," said Gautham Sastri, EVP of Storage Solutions at
Rackable Systems. "In addition to eliminating the performance
bottleneck inherent with legacy storage solutions, RapidScale clusters
are managed using standard tools already familiar to Linux system administrators,
resulting in a solution that is as easy to manage as it is revolutionary
in its performance."
"With our RapidScale deployment, we realized a storage solution
that sustained over 1.4 Gigabytes per second to disk and unleashed
the true potential of our Rackable Systems InfiniBand cluster," said
Craig Prescott, Senior Scientist for the University of Florida's
High-Performance Computing Center. "We are already in the
process of expanding our RapidScale deployment to take advantage of
the inherent scalability and satisfy our rapidly increasing demand
for capacity and throughput."
Key Features and Benefits
- Scalability: The RapidScale file system is scalable
to Petabytes of capacity. Unlike other file system architectures,
RapidScale is unencumbered by metadata bottlenecks, allowing near-linear
performance scaling as the number of appliances is increased. As
digital content needs continue to accelerate, RapidScale meets those
needs without having to divide content into tens or hundreds of separate
islands of storage.
- High throughput: The solution provides tens of
Gigabytes of throughput, delivering near-linear scaling. Performance
is only limited by the number of spindles deployed in the RapidScale
storage cluster.
- High IOPs: RapidScale's patent pending architecture
delivers equally impressive scaling of small file, random access
performance, satisfying the requirements of a wider range of application
needs.
- Centralized management: The solution allows administrators
to centrally manage all clustered storage servers from one file system.
- Easy deployment: RapidScale deploys quickly with
familiar Linux administration tools. With no kernel or application
modifications needed on accessing clients, administrators leverage
tried and true Linux utilities to create and manage the RapidScale
file system.
- Compatibility: Replication and backup software
compatible with the XFS file system are compatible with the RapidScale
solution for total compatibility.
- High availability and dual-level RAID
protection: Leveraging
optional RapidScale HA technology, Rackable Systems' RapidScale
clustered file system solution delivers two independent levels of
RAID protection—hardware RAID with optional hot spare inside
each appliance and storage cluster level RAID across appliances.
In case of failure of an entire appliance, the 8 TB of capacity is
quickly restored to a hot spare appliance in the same length of time
for a single drive RAID rebuild.
"We feel that clustered storage is going to completely change
the landscape of storage. But just because you put the word 'clustered'
in your documentation doesn't mean you have what I am referring to. So
buyers beware," said Tony Asaro, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy
Group. "Rackable Systems actually has one of the most compelling
clustered architectures and technologies in the industry. RapidScale
has leading price/performance that uniquely provides extremely high
performance in terms of throughput and IOPs. Additionally, Rackable
Systems has focused on ease of use and scalability. We believe
they can be a formidable player in the HPC storage arena."
Pricing and Availability
RapidScale is available immediately, with 8 TB Gigabit Ethernet
configurations of the SA3100 appliance at list prices starting at
$38,750, providing a cost-effective solution for under $5/GB. InfiniBand
and/or RapidScale HA configurations are also available to maximize
performance and availability.
For further information, please contact
Rackable Systems at 408-240-8300 or visit www.rackable.com.
About Rackable Systems
Rackable Systems, Inc. is a provider of servers and storage products for large-scale data center deployments. The company's products are designed to provide benefits in the areas of density, thermal efficiency, serviceability, power distribution and remote management. Founded in 1999 and based in Milpitas, California, Rackable Systems serves Internet, semiconductor design, enterprise software, federal government, entertainment, financial services, oil and gas exploration and biotechnology customers worldwide.
Contact Information:
Rackable Systems is a registered trademark of Rackable
Systems®, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective
holders.
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