ACADEMIA

STEC announced that Nexenta Systems, Inc. has certified an all-STEC SSD configuration using a combination of ZeusRAM and ZeusIOPS SSDs to increase read/write capabilities within its NexentaStor ZFS-based storage platform. STEC will showcase ZeusRAM and ZeusIOPS SSDs running on a NexentaStor platform at the May 22-24 OpenStorage Summit EMEA 2012 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Increasing the I/O performance of next-generation data centers and cloud computing environments is essential for supporting enterprise e-commerce, database and email applications. Utilizing STEC's ZeusRAM SSD as the write log and ZeusIOPS SSD as the read cache within the NexentaStor storage system alleviates performance bottlenecks. Benefits include up to 5X better performance for such enterprise applications as database indexing and email exchanges, 8X reduction in cost per user, and 4X reduction in cost per transaction.

"The OpenStorage Summit EMEA 2012 is all about technical education and skills training, as well as networking and relationship-building activities," said Evan Powell, CEO, Nexenta Systems. "STEC is at the forefront of SSD technology and their involvement at this year's event is indicative of the high caliber of our sponsors. As our strategic SSD supplier, STEC is helping us deliver differentiated value to Nexenta customers and their participation will help fuel the growth of OpenStorage Summit EMEA."

"We have used alternative lower-cost SSD solutions in the past, and in all instances we noticed that the drive's read caching performance dropped off drastically after only two months of operation," said Eddo Jansen, infrastructure manager at BAS Group, the largest electronics retailer and e-tailer in the Netherlands. "As these performance decreases were unacceptable, we decided to switch to STEC's SSDs, which based on our experience were able to sustain a high level of reliability and performance over the drive's entire lifetime. We have since selected, and now use, STEC's enterprise SSDs exclusively as two important components of our ZFS architecture: ZeusRAM to accelerate synchronous writes, and ZeusIOPS to accelerate reads. The efficiency of STEC's SSD solutions has far exceeded our expectations."

"At STEC, we pride ourselves on building the best possible enterprise-class solid-state drives and solutions," said Davide Villa, STEC Vice President of Sales, EMEA. "Our ZeusRAM and ZeusIOPS SSDs are purpose-built from the ground up to excel throughout the life of the drive. We are excited about being able to deliver the performance and cost benefits of our drives to Nexenta's customers."

NexentaStor is a unified storage management software platform that delivers enterprise-class features and runs on industry-standard hardware. Using NexentaStor, customers can save up to 80 percent over proprietary solutions while enjoying superior functionality and flexibility.

In addition, NexentaStor helps organizations implement high performance, cost-effective data storage solutions by taking advantage of features such as ZFS Intent Log (ZIL), inline deduplication, hardware-agnostic solutions, unlimited snapshots and cloning.

Product Demonstrations at OpenStorage Summit EMEA 2012

STEC's ZeusRAM and ZeusIOPS SSDs will be featured at OpenStorage Summit EMEA 2012, hosted by Nexenta, from May 22-24 at the Mercure Hotel in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Bundle package discounts are available for companies that wish to take advantage of the read/write capabilities of STEC's ZeusRAM and ZeusIOPS SSDs within a NexentaStor storage solution.