Dell EMC PowerScale Makes Unstructured Data More Valuable

Organizations today are looking for more ways to get more out of their data. The challenge is that an increasingly large proportion of this data exists outside of databases in an unstructured combination of documents, images, videos, and social media content within the data center, at the edge, and in the cloud. Due to the exponentially growing and unorganized nature of this data, traditional storage tools are ill-equipped in providing ways to leverage it in an easily manageable way.

In response to these data-centric challenges, Dell Technologies has combined its industry-leading storage software and server hardware to introduce the Dell EMC PowerScale family of storage systems. This robust set of solutions is setting a new standard for how organizations can unlock the full potential of their massive collections of unstructured data.

Dell EMC PowerScale Defined

Dell EMC PowerScale runs on the next generation of the well-known OneFS Operating System, which also powers Dell EMC Isilon, the top scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) system in the industry.[1] The PowerScale family includes Isilon nodes and PowerScale nodes, with PowerScale OneFS running across them all. This allows organizations the ability to create elastic OneFS-powered clusters of PowerScale and Isilon for the storage of massive amounts of unstructured data. Thanks to the software-defined architecture of OneFS, these organizations also benefit from simple provisioning regardless of scale, data control across any location, and augmented intelligence for improved decision-making.

Scale Up Data Management with Ease

PowerScale significantly reduces the administrative burden traditionally associated with scaling up storage. Organizations can begin on a small scale and grow over time without the complexity and business disruption typically associated with storage system changes. By simply adding nodes to either PowerScale or an existing Isilon cluster, which can take as little as 60 seconds, new storage capacity and performance can be provisioned. Cumbersome migrations of the past are no longer a problem. With PowerScale, new storage nodes are automatically discovered and quickly balanced. This ensures that resources are distributed across the cluster in a way that utilizes assets in the most efficient way possible, enabling better performance and resiliency for organizations as a whole.

Control Data in Any Location

Accessibility to your company’s vast array of unstructured data can finally be brought under control effectively thanks to PowerScale’s unique characteristics. PowerScale is flexible in the variety of file protocols it supports and where it can be deployed. Whether organizations are running modern apps that rely on object storage or any number of more traditional options, the PowerScale OneFS 9.0 multiprotocol support feature ensures any application an organization may use is supported.

From a deployment perspective, PowerScale is not limited to just core data centers. The compact 1U footprint and minimal cluster size of new all-flash F200 and NVMe F600 PowerScale boded are an ideal option for the edge. Additionally, organizations with a multi-cloud strategy can directly connect PowerScale to any major cloud provider.

Gain Superior Data Intelligence

PowerScale is capable of putting data to work in an unparalleled fashion, thanks to the introduction of the Dell EMC DataIQ software included in the platform. With DataIQ, organizations gain a single pane of glass for viewing file and object data across Dell EMC, third-party, and public cloud storage, eliminating traditional data silos that prevented potentially valuable insights from coming to light. With such comprehensive data controls, more well-informed business decisions are made possible, and an organization’s data suddenly becomes much more useful. Dell EMC CloudIQ is another critical piece of internal software, which analyzes performance and capacity in real-time, providing a much more proactive approach to planning and risk management than what any traditional storage platform has to offer.

Since data today looks very different from that of the past, we are presented with not just a storage problem, but potentially a more significant issue surrounding holistic data management. Organizations must recognize that to get as much value as possible out of their unstructured data today. In the future, they must seek out innovative solutions that allow them to capitalize on data no matter where it resides and use this data to drive their businesses forward. Dell EMC PowerScale is purpose-built to meet these needs.