Fujitsu expands global storage business under the ETERNUS brand

Singapore, June 08, 2009 — Fujitsu today introduces its new global storage portfolio under the ETERNUS brand name. It provides customers with a comprehensive range of storage arrays and data protection solutions for every type of business.

Underlining its new worldwide focus, Fujitsu now introduces a standardised global storage portfolio, aimed at providing its growing customer base with class-leading versatile, high-availability ETERNUS storage systems.

Joining the ETERNUS line-up are the new ETERNUS DX60 and DX80 entry-level RAID storage systems. These deliver new features such as reduced power consumption, simplified management and offer improved redundancy, meeting growing demand from mid-sized enterprises.

Fujitsu also announces version 4.1 of ETERNUS CS, the leading virtual tape product for large data centres formerly branded CentricStor VT, as well as ETERNUS LT entry-level tape systems. Both products offer customers practical data protection solutions and extend the range of archive and backup solutions available from enterprise-class virtual tape appliances through to highly cost-effective entry-level tape automation. The new ETERNUS CS version introduces significant performance improvements and updated hardware. Offering superior disaster resilience capabilities and tight integration of disk and tape, ETERNUS CS is now more scalable than ever.

"Organisations, today, need an IT partner that delivers a broad range of reliable yet innovative storage solutions to help them deal with rapid data growth and fast evolving information management needs," says Richard Villars, Vice President, Storage Systems and IT Strategies at IDC. “The globalisation of Fujitsu's storage portfolio under the ETERNUS brand will allow the company to more effectively deliver a broad set of storage, backup and data protection solutions to its customers around the world."

“The new ETERNUS DX models mark the beginning of our global presence in the storage market under the ETERNUS brand and will continue the ETERNUS success story,” comments Dr Helmut Beck, Vice President Storage Business at Fujitsu Technology Solutions. “In line with ETERNUS brand values, the new models offer high data-centre quality, reliability and flexibility.”

The ETERNUS DX60 and DX80, new entry segment products, are based on the previous generation FibreCAT SX60 and SX80 and ETERNUS 2000 systems, and exemplify high quality.

Both ETERNUS DX systems offer high availability, reliability and speed at an attractive price point. The models, which are scalable from 292 GB to 120 TB (DX80), not only have redundant components and 4 or 8 Gigabit per-second Fibre Channel technology, but also add a number of new functions that ensure greater availability and significantly faster recovery, including eight snapshots (which can be extended to 1024) to enable rapid backups. They also feature easy-to-activate encryption to prevent unauthorised access to confidential data. ETERNUS DX series models also introduce an EcoMode function, based on MAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks) technology, which allows disks that are no longer needed (such as disks planned for daily backups) to be shut down to conserve energy – a capability designed to contribute to green datacentres.

New technologies set standards in reliability and availability

The ETERNUS DX60 and DX80 protect the integrity of data on disk and in the system cache with Data Block Guard, a function that can detect and automatically correct data corruption. In addition, the systems have a CacheProtector feature which writes the contents of the RAID controller cache to flash memory if a power outage occurs. A capacitor helps to save power; unlike traditional batteries it recharges within minutes, allowing the cache to be used again very quickly. This means that the system remains protected in the event of a power failure and can again deliver full performance once power is restored. The systems also have a new “Redundant Copy” function, which reacts at the first signs of a disk failure and automatically copies data from the disk in question. This dramatically reduces recovery times.

Easy to install, easy to manage

Complex and time-consuming administration of IT infrastructures is a major pain point for companies. ETERNUS DX systems offer customers ultimate usability: a pre-installed management software with a graphic user interface ensures the smooth and trouble-free daily operation – with no special user-training required. In addition, the ETERNUS SF software simplifies storage system management and maintenance and provides for example centralised system control of SAN/DAS/NAS storage resources as well as enhances operation management efficiency.

Backup to a suitable medium

The ETERNUS DX60 and DX80 are equipped with high-performance SAS and large capacity nearline SAS disk drives. Together with solid state drives, which will be available later this year, this offers an extensive set of data management options. Data can be saved on the appropriate medium according to the service levels involved to meet requirements such as cost, speed, access time, lifespan and easy usage. With the RAID migration feature, data can be moved dynamically between different RAID groups and hard disks.

The ETERNUS DX models have four ports and can connect to as many as 128 servers in SAN mode. Currently, these models are equipped with a Fibre Channel interface, but they will also be available with iSCSI and SAS interfaces shortly.

The ETERNUS DX60 and DX80 models are suitable for a wide range of applications, including storage consolidation and critical company applications, such as access to databases or e-mail, archiving, and backup to disk. They are also ideal for use in virtual server environments under VMware VSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V.