Storage Management Strategies for the CIO
Hitachi Data Systems Adaptable Modular Storage (AMS) 2000 Family
Disks and disk subsystems
Silver Award:
Dell EqualLogic PS6000 Series
EqualLogic had its foot firmly in the iSCSI door when iSCSI was still considered an ugly step-child of block storage, and long before Dell Inc. spent $1.4 billion to acquire EqualLogic and turned it into the iSCSI market leader. The PS6000 extends the Dell midrange array offerings by adding solid-state drive (SSD) support, more cache, faster processors, and enhanced management and data protection software.
The PS6000 represents a hardware redesign, and includes new eight-drive and 16-drive SSD modules, software integration with Microsoft Hyper-V, a new SAN Headquarters performance monitoring tool and a modified support structure. SAN Headquarters helps administrators track performance data over multiple groups of SANs instead of just within one local SAN group.
Judges were most impressed with the Ethernet-based system's ease of use and integration while noting its new features. "More innovative than previous generations," one judge said of the latest EqualLogic system. "Still a very fine, easy-to-use iSCSI SAN."