UPDATED 14:42 EDT / JUNE 16 2020

INFRA

Dell launches new Kubernetes-integrated PowerScale data storage systems

Dell Technologies Inc. today pulled back the curtains on PowerScale, a new line of flash storage systems that feature integration with Kubernetes as well as a new tool for managing data in multicloud environments.

PowerScale systems are designed to store unstructured information that is kept in the form of files or objects. The array family succeeds the Isilon series, which served as one of Dell’s flagship storage product lines for years.

Dell has taken the existing selection of Isilon systems and added two new all-flash models: the F200 and the F600. The former provides maximum raw capacity of about 15 terabytes, while the latter can scale to up to 61.44 terabytes. According to Dell, enterprises can deploy several hundred of the systems in a cluster to create a storage pool with up to 15 petabytes of storage space and the ability to handle millions of data operations per second.

The systems are running a new version of the OneFS Isilon operating system, PowerScale OneFS, that’s also becoming available for existing Isilon systems. It introduces integration with popular automation frameworks, better data reduction and an analytics tool called DataIQ to help enterprises optimize multicloud storage environments.

PowerScale OneFS features support for Kubernetes to help with the management of containerized workloads. It also works with with Ansible, Red Hat’s popular infrastructure configuration tool, and Dell’s own CloudIQ monitoring service. Administrators can use the latter offering to keep an eye on the health of their PowerScale systems. 

On the multicloud front, Dell said companies can connect PowerScale OneFS to Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Corp.’s Azure and Google Cloud. That allows PowerScale Systems to be used for supporting their off-premises workloads. The new DataIQ tool, in turn, provides a dashboard that allows administrators to monitor data centrally across on-premises PowerScale systems, outside storage hardware and public clouds.

“DataIQ helps control the data lifecycle by giving both IT and business users a toolset which enables them track data through its lifespan, ensuring the location of the data is known, determining if it is stored on the right platform and if it is accessible by the right stakeholders,” John Shirley, the head of product management for Dell’s unstructured data solutions, wrote in a blog post

“Using custom tagging functionality, users can also logically group data from disparate systems together,” Shirley added. “This capability is useful for correlating related folder and file assets which might be stored on different volumes, across multiple platforms, according to how actual project teams are organized within a business.”

The PowerScale brings other software improvements as well, including support for the popular S3 storage protocol used by applications to interact with object-based data. There’s also a revamped data reduction mechanism under the hood. It’s touted as six times more efficient than the previous version, which means companies will gain the ability to store more data using the same amount of raw storage.

PowerScale OneFS, the new PowerScale flash systems and DataIQ are all generally available today. The launch marks another milestone in Dell’s efforts to reorganize its data center hardware portfolio under the Power brand, an effort that previously saw it rebrand its midrange storage portfolio.

Images: Dell

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU