Described in smug detail by IBM as “monolithic,” EMC’s new Symmetrix DMX-3 data-storage system will be biggest system on the market, just shy of a beached whale.
Available in September only for those who absolutely need it, the DMX-3 is the same size as eight side-by-side refrigerators, storing a petabyte of data. Just for added awe-factor, a petabyte of data is equivalent to 20 million four-drawer filing cabinets of information.
The mammoth data-storage system supports up to 960 disk drives currently, but will have the ability to handle more than 2000 by the end of next year.
Companies that need this type of intense data capacity, like financial and government institutions, will be targeted to purchase the DMX-3, expected to cost millions. Its predecessor, the Symmetrix DMX-2 runs at about $250,000.
The price disparity is supported by the DMX-3 capabilities, featuring twice the bandwidth as the DMX-2, and triple the processing power. Fully mirrored global memory directors based on Dual Data Rate memory technology adds an impressive boost to memory power as well.
“These are for places that need scale, and high transaction performance,” said Tom Joyce, EMC’s vice president of storage platform marketing. “These customers don’t want to sacrifice performance as their storage scale goes up.”
The DMX-3 offers a unique tiering capability that allows some applications to run tier-one storage while others run a lower-cost Fibre Channel storage.
President and CEO Joe Tucci says the companies that would benefit most from the system are ones that handle things like airline reservations, credit card applications, and security trading.
“As information requirements grow, cost per terabyte is very important,” said Tucci. “High-end systems have better performance, software functionality, and recoverability.”
EMC’s main competition is IBM and Hitachi Data Systems. Vice president of IBM TotalStorage, Rich Lechner, didn’t seem overly impressed with the offering, according to MarketWatch.
“It’s good to see EMC finally acknowledging the significant availability exposure of their design, though they remain wed to their monolithic, proprietary (technological) architecture,” Lechner said. “(We believe) IBM’s storage offerings set the bar in openness and in delivering a range of systems.”
