EMC Corp. today announced a new midrange version of its Celerra NAS product, the NS600, based on the Clariion storage array.
Users have been expecting the network-attached storage product, which will compete against Network Appliance Inc. hardware, since it was first announced with the code name Celerriion by CEO Joe Tucci in June.
NS600–NS means Network Server; 600 comes from Clariion CX600–can be configured in either high-availability mode or maximum performance mode, said Paul Ross, director of storage networking, in Hopkinton, Mass.
Most systems will be sold in high-availability mode, he said. In that mode, NS600 will have an estimated 22,600 inputs/outputs per second; in high-performance mode, it will have an estimated 36,000 inputs/outputs per second, officials added.
“We will extend it next year,” Ross said, referring to upgrades and possible additional versions. EMC partner Dell Computer Corp., he said, “is very interested in the product,” as previously reported by eWeek. “It is available for them to sell today,” he added. How soon Dell will do so is not yet clear.
Switching from high-availability mode to performance mode is “a 10-minute kind of thing,” Ross said. However, to switch in the opposite direction, users will first have to back up and move file systems, he said.
NS600 is available immediately and starts at $167,000 for a 1-terabyte configuration.
To further distinguish the NS600 from the high -end, Symmetrix-based version of Celerra, EMC has renamed that version Celerra CNS, for Clustered Network Server, Ross added.
EMC also announced new software. OnCourse is software for peer-to-peer movement of files and data across geographically dispersed locations. It is available immediately and starts at $33,000. Celerra Web Manager is a Web-based tool for performing network configurations, hardware configurations and file system management.
Celerra Native Manager, an existing tool for overall NAS management, now has a Windows version. All Celerra hardware and software integrates with ControlCenter, officials said.
