The DXi series from Quantum Corporation are disk-based backup appliances targeted to midrange or data center deployments. The appliances attach to the network via Ethernet, Fibre Channel, or both (more below), and are served with raw capacities ranging from 2 TB to 240 TB.

At the core of the appliances is a common technology base with features including de-duplication, compression, asynchronous replication, dual interfaces, and built-in monitoring, alerting and diagnostic tools. Management of the appliance is via a GUI interface.

De-duplication allows the devices to automatically store only unique data on the device; data that is a copy of data already stored on the appliance is not written again. As an example, the vendor notes that their de-duplication technology can increase the retention capacity of the DXi5500 up to a potential 540 TB; a metric which assumes a 50:1 de-duplication ratio over a "standard business data mix" and full daily backups. (I.E., your results may vary.)

Asynchronous replication enables the de-duplication technology to be leveraged in disaster recovery scenarios; where a DXi series appliance can automatically replicate its stored data asynchronously to another DXi series appliance at a remote (WAN connected) location. One-to-one or multiple-to-one replications are supported, with individual partitions within the same appliance able to act as replication sources or targets (appliances with partitions that are designated as replication targets can also provide backup for local data, as well). Replication is automated and operates as a background process on the appliances.

The appliances present themselves to the hosts on the network via two primary possibilities: As a NAS device, with CIFS/NFS compatibility and using Ethernet connectivity; or as a Virtual Tape Library via Fibre channel or iSCSI connections. Multiple library and drive emulations are supported (see vendor for current details), and each appliance can be presented to the network as NAS, VTL, or both.

Three models are now offered in the DXi Series line.

The two lower end models are each offered with one of four possible configurations. The DXi3500 is a 2U appliance offered in raw capacities of 2, 3, 4, and 6 TB; while the DXi5500 ships with 6, 9, 12, or 18 TB of raw capacity. Some in-chassis and onsite capacity upgrade possibilities are available for the lower-capacity models. Host connectivity is via 2 Gb/sec FC ports or 10/100/1000 Ethernet.

On the high end, the DXi7500 Enterprise is targeted to large enterprises and data centers and now boasts up to 220 TB of usable data capacity. The DXi7500 features redundant components, including dual (active/active) RAID and main controllers, and redundant/hot swappable drives, power supplies, and fans. Key additional features in the DXi7500 model include support for the user's choice of inline or post-processing de-duplication (with inline de-duplication duplicate data is removed as data is ingested, decreasing inline performance in favor of lower disk usage; while post-processing de-duplicates the data in a separate process after it is written to disk, favoring inline performance over disk usage); and support for direct physical tape creation enabling the writing of tapes in the background over a dedicated FC link. Both inline and post-processing de-duplication can be utilized in the same DXi7500 with different data sets, differentiated by administrator defined policies (a VTL/NAS mode is also supported with no de-duplication). The lower end DXis support only inline de-duplication. Host connectivity to the DXi7500 is via 4 Gb/sec FC ports or 10/100/1000 Ethernet.

Also available from the vendor is an "Express" version of the DXi7500, with 11 TB of usable disk capacity and a 5U footprint.

New features in the latest DXi release focus solely on the DXi7500 series, and include the aforementioned capacity increases (previous usable capacities were 9 TB for the DXi7500 Express, and up to 180 TB for the DXi7500 Enterprise); support for RAID 6; support for replication at the cartridge or file/directory level; the ability to make replicated data immediately available at the target; support for the Symantec NetBackup OpenStorage API; enhanced Oracle RMAN support; and a CLI, among other enhancements. The new DXi7500s are available now, with a base price of $98,250 (DXi Express with 11 TB of usable capacity).

Contact Quantum for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

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