Dot Hill Launches Unified Storage Appliances for SMBs, Midmarket

Virtual storage provider Dot Hill Systems, which has been building its own brand after supplying its wares to large systems vendors for years, Nov. 9 launched its first unified virtual storage appliances.

Dot Hill's AssuredUVS Standard and AssuredUVS Datacenter appliances are aimed squarely at the SMB and SME markets, respectively. They combine software, servers and storage into single boxes that find and utilize a system's diverse storage assets to improve storage efficiencies, support multiple server applications and make management easier.

The AssuredUVS storage platform, previously known as iSN, is based on IP Dot Hill acquired from Cloverleaf Communications in January 2010. AssuredUVS Standard, with 50TB of initial licensed capacity, is designed to virtualize storage for midsize businesses, and Dot Hill claimed it can scale to a maximum of 250TB.

The Datacenter edition employs a scale-out model for higher performance and capacities up to 6PB.

Dot Hill's secret sauce is primarily in the home-developed virtualization and automated management software housed in its AssuredSAN platforms.

This enables enterprises to manage combinations of file storage (NAS systems with CIFS or NFS) or block storage (Fibre Channel or iSCSI) with a common set of data management features that include snapshots, thin provisioning, tiered provisioning, replication, synchronous mirroring and data migration-all from one interface.

"IT managers are looking for storage solutions that not only deliver immediate value, but also enable flexibility and growth over time, so that storage can adapt to changes in an organization's applications, user needs or business demands," said Enterprise Strategy Group Senior Analyst Mark Peters.

"Storage solutions that are both virtualized and unified are ideal to address the needs for both storage flexibility and data growth. Dot Hill has the right mix of capabilities and offerings and has positioned itself to capitalize on the market opportunity."

AssuredUVS appliances are expected to be available through Dot Hill authorized resellers starting in December. List prices start at $63,960 for AssuredUVS Standard models with dual controllers for high availability.