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3PAR Launches World's First Utility Storage Server To Revolutionize Storage System Architectures
Breakthrough Architecture Yields a Dramatic Improvement in Cost of Ownership Via Innovations in Hardware, Software and Serviceability
LAS VEGAS, NV, US — June 10 2002
At the forefront of the new Utility Storage Category, 3PAR® today unveiled an entire Storage Server product line that incorporates breakthrough hardware and software innovations to overcome the complexities, cost and functional limitations of current storage architectures. Debuting at the Gartner PlanetStorage Conference, 3PAR's next generation Utility Storage system will permit information — intensive companies to securely consolidate storage and centralize information for enterprise scale applications.
With storage needs doubling annually and the need to improve utilization of information becoming a major goal, customers have been required to retrofit outdated storage architectures with multiple incremental layers of software and hardware. Led by experienced executives and backed by industry leaders, 3PAR is bringing Utility Storage to market in order to break this cycle of spiraling complexity and infrastructure costs. As the only systems that can modularly scale in capacity from the mid-range to hundreds of terabytes (TB) and directly connect to many scores of hosts, 3PAR's Utility Storage servers can deliver 2-3 times the capacity, 2-5 times the performance of competing systems. Additionally, 3PAR enables substantially higher levels of IT productivity in deploying, managing and upgrading storage and dramatically reduces cost of ownership. The net result is that customers will be able to save more than $1 million in cost of ownership over 3 years for each 10 TB of usable capacity deployed on a 3PAR Utility Storage Server.
"Today we have a new category of storage, Utility Storage, which includes companies like 3PAR," said Nick Allen, Vice President and Research Director, Gartner Group. "Utility Storage is designed from the ground up to address the shortfalls of previous generations of systems. Utility Storage meets the need for a highly scalable and controllable information infrastructure with a dramatically improved total cost of ownership."
The 3PAR InSpire® Architecture, the 3PAR InServ® hardware and the 3PAR InForm® software were designed together to deliver always-on operation by eliminating not just hardware, but also software as a single point of failure. The system offers IT departments the unprecedented ability to act as de-facto internal service providers and securely provision and track differentiated service levels, as well as offer capabilities that enhance the usability of data.
"The enterprise IT department will have to become an internal utility provider in order to become truly strategic to the organization," said Steve Duplessie, Founder and Senior Analyst, Enterprise Storage Group. "3PAR is the first to deliver the ability to consolidate back-end block storage and form the cornerstone of the utility. This is the way things will be done moving forward."
3PAR InSpire Archtecture: A New Architecture and Technology approach—from the Ground Up
The 3PAR Utility Storage Server was developed from the ground up to allow customers to Consolidate their storage, Control their environment and Capitalize on their investment in information and infrastructure. The shortfalls of previous generation systems are addressed via two sets of Utility Storage attributes: Multi-Tenancy and Carrier Class. Multi-Tenancy is the ability for multiple applications, lines of business and even different customers to securely and flexibly share a consolidated pool of storage while maintaining individualized service levels and un-restricted workloads. Carrier Class represents levels of availability, performance, and connectivity previously unattainable with enterprise class products.
The 3PAR InSpire Architecture addresses the limitations of the bus based and switch based architectures of today. In contrast to these earlier architectures, the InSpire architecture can scale bi-directionally and independently in performance, capacity and connectivity, allowing for a much broader product line with a lower cost entry point. The system consists of a tightly coupled, cache coherent cluster of up to eight controllers, each with a copy of the OS. Unlike any other offering, the system can maintain a high percentage of its performance in the case of a micro code problem, whereas competing systems would go down. Moreover, the 3PAR InSpire Architecture is the only architecture that completely separates the processing and movement of data from control, thereby allowing the system to process random and sequential workloads simultaneously. Applications such as transaction processing and analysis can reside on one system. The architecture emphasizes openness and industry standard components are used wherever possible to yield the lowest possible cost.
3PAR InServ Storage Servers: The Most Scalable Modular Storage System in the industry
The 3PAR InServ Utility Storage Server is made of three primary types of hardware components:
- Ultra-Dense Disk Chassis: An intelligent subsystem, each disk chassis houses up to 40 drives and 6 terabytes of storage capacity. Supporting up to 2560 disks, the 3PAR InServ Storage Server boasts 2X the density in terms of MB/floor tile of the industry's current densest system.
- High Performance Controllers: The product family includes a 2-controller system, a 2-4controller system, and 2-8 controller system. The 8-controller system can scale granularly up to 192 full bandwidth Fibre Channel ports. Each controller contains a high performance ASIC for data movement and calculations and dual Intel processors for control.
- Low-Latency Passive Backplane: A full mesh interconnect linking each controller is implemented across an ultra low latency back plane with no active components to insure availability. The back plane delivers up to 28 gigabytes/second (GB/s) of aggregate system bandwidth in an 8-way system.
3PAR InForm Software: Best in Class Efficiency via Integration and Automation
The software suite is designed to harness the performance of the system and yet present the user a single point of management and the appearance of a simple multi-ported disk to the host server. Administrative activities such as configuration, performance management, backup, and recovery are simplified and can be accomplished in a small fraction of the time and number of commands needed by competing systems. More than 300 TBs of usable capacity can be managed by a single administrator on each 3PAR InServ Storage Server, increasing productivity an order of magnitude over existing industry norms and sharply driving down operating expenses. The granularity of the virtualization, the levels of administrative security, the extensive capabilities of the snapshots and the instrumentation are all substantial advancements relative to what is available in the industry today:
- Logical and Fine Granularity Physical Virtualization: The 3PAR InForm Operating System that resides on each controller includes a Clustered and Distributed Volume manager that subdivides the disks into small 256 Megabyte chunklets. It then can autonomically select chunklets across all the appropriate disks and controllers necessary to deliver the required service level.
- Advanced Snapshots: Users can take hundreds of snapshots that are read-able, write-able, promotable and occupy a fraction of the space of full physical copies. This enables real time analysis, efficient backups and ultra fast recovery, as well as new methods for concurrent testing and development on multiple fully functional data images.
- Security: The system can be divided into multiple administrative pools with multiple permission levels so that one administrator cannot inadvertently affect the service level of any other application.
- Service-Level Metrics: The system contains advanced internal instrumentation which, when combined with the integrated volume manager, can track not just physical statistics — as with the competition — but also logical statistics that can be aggregated. Users can therefore develop reports on performance and capacity events associated with specific applications and customers.
- Thin Provisioning: 3PAR offers the ability to provision less than the amount of storage initially requested by an application. This turns on its head the normal ratios of usable to raw storage capacity, improving utilization of storage by up to an order of magnitude.
Customer Service — Mainframe Class Proactive Service
3PAR made a multi-million dollar investment in a technology set for a next generation remote, proactive and predictive service model that is far more automated than what exists today. This infrastructure takes advantage of the advanced instrumentation embedded into the 3PAR InServ. The 3PAR Support Center is staffed with personnel each averaging more than 15 years of experience in mainframe and open system service and is augmented by an integrated set of software including CRM, diagnostic and learning tools.
Industry Leading Customers
As testimony to the value enterprises are placing on the capabilities of Utility Storage, the 3PAR InServ System has been implemented in 12 Beta sites in the United States and Japan. Of these sites, five customers are members of the Fortune 100, including Prudential Financial and AIG, Inc. Seven of the Betas are among the Fortune 500, including Oracle Corporation. Additional Beta customers include VERITAS Software and Raging Wire, an enterprise class service provider.
Dramatically Reduced Ownership Costs
Until now, any attempt to overcome current storage array limitations has required layering on additional hardware and software — a retrofit that comes with a significant price tag. With 3PAR, customers can provision the level of functionality needed up-front and then grow modularly as their demand climbs in capacity, performance, connectivity, management capability and security. Over the course of 3 years, an implementation of the 3PAR InServ Storage Servers can save at least a million dollars for every 10 TBs of usable capacity deployed.
"Enterprises have long struggled with an inability to fully utilize data, but the next-generation services enabled by Utility Storage provide customers with the means to become service providers unto themselves and fully leverage information as a competitive advantage," said Senior Analyst Jamie Gruener, Yankee Group. "By delivering that functionality today, 3PAR has a significant lead on the market and should have the large storage system vendors taking notice. Many customers would expect to pay a dear price for this level of storage services, but 3PAR's Utility Storage servers deliver the benefits of next-generation storage services with the cost efficiencies of standard technology and modular architectures. For customers, that should be very attractive."
Certified Partnerships and Interoperable Standards
3PAR's breakthrough technologies are supported by investments and certification from two industry giants: Oracle Corp and VERITAS Software. This ecosystem is the first among next-generation storage providers and gives customers the confidence to deploy pre-tested and certified 3PAR systems. 3PAR is committed to an open, standard-neutral approach that will ultimately include link technologies such as Fibre Channel, Ethernet and iSCSI, as well as management technologies such as SNMP (simple network management protocol) and CIM (common information model) for vendor-neutral control. 3PAR plans to provide open APIs (application programming interfaces) across its storage operating system and storage management utilities to further aid in the centralization and control of the IT storage infrastructure.
"Oracle's key initiative focuses on better servicing our customers, through programs such as outsourcing and standardized Oracle® E-Business Suite deployments," said Juan Jones, Vice President, Oracle Corp. "Oracle recognizes the new Utility Storage category as playing a key role in data consolidation which can enhance total-cost-of-ownership through simplifying the storage infrastructure. 3PAR has the potential to be a significant player in this emerging class of storage."
"VERITAS Software and 3PAR share a common commitment to empowering customers to reduce data center complexity and improve the flexibility of storage administration," said Robert Soderbery, Senior Director of Business Development and Strategic Alliances, VERITAS Software. "3PAR's Utility Storage Server and VERITAS' Adaptive Software Architecture are designed to address these requirements. Through the VERITAS Enabled partner program, 3PAR is working closely with VERITAS to ensure that 3PAR's Utility Storage Servers are qualified and certified with VERITAS software products, giving our joint customers full confidence in an enterprise-class solution that is jointly supported by VERITAS and 3PAR."
"The value of any storage system is only as great as its ability to operate in tandem with other solutions and enhance the efficiency of business processes," said David Scott, President and CEO, 3PAR. "The utilization of focused, best-in-class solutions inherently provides greater functionality to the end-user. 3PAR's Utility Storage solutions provide customers with immediate benefits in performance, scalability and cost, but these partnerships and our commitment to standards helps 3PAR protect its customers' previous investments while driving increased ROI from the entire IT infrastructure."
Availability
3PAR's Utility Storage solution is currently in Beta testing and will be generally available starting in the 3rd quarter of 2002. The product will be available directly from 3PAR in the United States. Entry pricing begins around $100,000 U.S.
About 3PAR
3PAR® (NYSE: PAR) is the leading global provider of utility storage, a category of highly virtualized, tightly clustered, and dynamically tiered storage arrays built for utility computing. Organizations use utility computing to build cost-effective virtualized IT infrastructures for flexible workload consolidation. 3PAR Utility Storage gives customers an alternative to traditional arrays by delivering resilient infrastructure with increased agility at a lower total cost to meet their rapidly changing business needs. As a pioneer of thin provisioning — a green technology developed to address storage underutilization and inefficiencies — 3PAR offers products designed to minimize power consumption and promote environmental responsibility. With 3PAR, customers have reduced the costs of allocated storage capacity, administration, and SAN infrastructure while increasing adaptability and resiliency. 3PAR Utility Storage is built to meet the demands of open systems consolidation, integrated data lifecycle management, and performance-intensive applications. For more information, visit the 3PAR Website at: www.3PAR.com.
