Permabit introduces Inline Data Efficiency Appliance for Fibre Channel SANs

Permabit Technology Corporation has introduced Albireo SANblox™, a ready-to-run high performance data efficiency appliance for primary storage.

Based on Permabit’s industry-leading Albireo VDO and HIOPS™ Compression software, SANblox provides high performance inline data deduplication and compression to new and existing Fibre Channel-attached storage arrays. It provides immediate data reduction across a wide range of applications, including mixed virtual server, VDI, database (OLTP and data warehouse) and Big Data environments.

SANblox leverages existing management features of arrays (thin provisioning, snapshots and replication) and sits as a separate appliance on the SAN, so it can be selectively applied to data sets that benefit from deduplication and compression, while remaining out of the path of those that don’t. With inline data efficiency, storage savings from deduplication and compression are realized immediately. The result has the combined effect of increasing effective capacity to reduce costs while expanding cache utilization to enhance performance.

“It is an intelligent move for Permabit to begin providing its high-performing data efficiency offerings packaged in a ready-to-run hardware solution,” said Ben Woo, Managing Director of Neuralytix, a global IT market research firm. “There are a vast number of Fibre Channel SAN storage systems still in production today. Many of these systems were acquired before deduplication and compression technologies were standard. SANblox provides a way for OEMs to compete more effectively, maintain account control, and grow their market share.”

The appliance incorporates field proven technology from Permabit, Emulex and Red Hat and has been tested with leading block-based storage arrays including: EMC VNX, EMC VMAX, Dell SC800 series, HDS HUS, NetApp E-Series, and Huawei OceanStor T series. It will also work with any storage units that are certified to work with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5. Brocade and Cisco Fibre Channel switches are supported, as is connectivity with either Emulex or QLogic HBAs. Delivered in a 1U form factor, SANblox enables OEMs and their resellers to immediately meet their customers’ needs by offering the highest performing data reduction capability in the market while maintaining all the features customers expect from their SAN arrays.

“Permabit’s SANblox gives us the ability to bring a technology to our customers that drives down the effective cost of storage,” said Dustin Grimmeissen, Storage Practice Manager of RoundTower Technologies, a leading provider of storage technology solutions. “We can now provide inline deduplication and compression in the storage arrays that we offer and allow customers to utilize all of the features of their existing system. In our testing, SANblox delivers this capability with minimal to no impact to backend storage performance, and for many workloads, it makes the backend storage perform better.”

“We designed SANblox to be at the forefront of the next generation of data efficiency solutions,” said Tom Cook, Permabit CEO. “Effective cost advantages help storage vendors to increase their addressable markets, protect margins and grow market share, immediately. SANblox plugs into any Fibre Channel SAN array, allowing OEMs to reduce their total time to market and to provide their customers with storage savings, today.”