ENTERTAINMENT

New Functionality Includes Optimized Metadata Handling for Cost-Efficiency; File System Enhancements Yield Industry's Highest Capacity on a Single Node or Cluster

BlueArc has announced SiliconFS 7.0, the latest iteration of the industry's only hardware-accelerated file system software that delivers massive performance and scalability. SiliconFS 7.0 new features include advanced metadata management for cost and disk efficiency, as well as file system enhancements that allow scaling up to 16 usable petabytes (PB) on a single node or cluster.

The optimized metadata handling option in SiliconFS 7.0 enables customers to use fewer high performance disks combined with lower cost disks while achieving the same industry-leading performance that BlueArc customers know and love. It delivers this efficiency by automatically separating the metadata from the user data, placing the metadata on the fastest tier of storage being used (SAS or Solid State Disk), and placing the rest of the user data on the slower, less expensive tier. In turn, metadata operations are accelerated to improve overall system performance, while reducing the amount of high-performance storage required.

"SiliconFS 7.0 offers our customers superior value by including optimized metadata management at no additional cost. Metadata is the 'data about data.' While it is a small percentage of the total file system, the number of 'metadata' operations is significantly greater than the 'regular' data operations and contributes to a larger share of the I/O overhead," said Ravi Chalaka, senior director of solutions and product marketing at BlueArc. "Since SiliconFS 7.0 can automatically store metadata in high performance spindles or solid state drives while storing user data in low cost storage tiers, it greatly improves system response time and enables cost efficiency with high performance. When combined with BlueArc Data Migrator and policy-based intelligent tiering, customers gain the ultimate combination of flexibility, performance and cost-efficiency."

SiliconFS 7.0 also includes a number of key file system enhancements which increase the maximum storage capacity of the BlueArc platforms. BlueArc Mercury systems now support up to 8PB of usable storage, while the company's Titan family now supports up to 16 usable PB on a single node or cluster. Unlike many competitive capacity claims which cite raw numbers, BlueArc capacities reflect usable space net of any RAID or management overhead.

"With this update, BlueArc now offers the highest capacity available on a single node or cluster in the industry today," said Chalaka. "While 16 PB may exceed some organizations' capacity requirements, many of our customers in the high performance computing (HPC) space will gain immediate value by taking advantage of additional storage capacity without needing to purchase additional nodes for scaling, thus limiting the filer sprawl that is so prevalent with competitive systems."

Availability
SiliconFS 7.0 also includes a number of additional features and enhancements, such as new performance reporting and monitoring functionality, which have been driven largely by customer input. SiliconFS 7.0 is now shipping to customers on the BlueArc Mercury and Titan platforms. For more information visit www.bluearc.com.