EMC Corporation has unveiled XtremIO version 4.0, a non-disruptive free software upgrade to XtremIO v3.X arrays. Already the leading all-flash array in the industry, the new XtremIO 4.0 now supports new larger all-flash array configurations, expands on-demand capabilities and consolidates workloads at unprecedented levels of performance and availability. Nicknamed “The Beast” by customers, XtremIO 4.0 leverages XtremIO’s breakthrough scale-out architecture, more than doubling previous density with 40TBs per X-Brick and by offering configurations of up to eight 40TB X-Bricks, with non-disruptive performance and capacity expansions that automatically rebalances data to maintain consistent and predictable sub-millisecond performance.

XtremIO 4.0 helps customers transform their data center applications with breakthrough in-memory copy services, enabling entire workflows to be streamlined and automated from the storage through the hypervisor and into the application. This is driving the rapid adoption of XtremIO across mission-critical workloads and workflows such as software DevOps, real-time analytics, production and non-production database acceleration, SAP landscape consolidation, private/hybrid clouds, enterprise-wide VDI, messaging and collaboration and electronic medical records (EMRs).

What’s new in XtremIO 4.0:

· Enhanced Data Protection – XtremIO supports powerful scale-out replication based on best-of-breed EMC RecoverPoint software. Data on XtremIO arrays can be replicated to other XtremIO arrays or any array supported by RecoverPoint. XtremIO replication delivers up to one-minute Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), even when replicating at data center scale with flash-array levels of workload and data change rates.

· Bigger, Faster Clusters – EMC is introducing a new 40TB X-Brick building block, which is double the density of previous XtremIO systems. In addition, XtremIO clusters now scale up to eight X-Bricks with 16 N-way active controllers (up from 12), capable of delivering petabytes of effective capacity in a single rack through inline data reduction and space-efficient copies.

· Online Expansion – XtremIO arrays now can be non-disruptively expanded for performance and capacity, with automatic rebalancing and no application downtime.

· Application Automation – XtremIO’s copy data management functions are integrated into key enterprise application management stacks such as VMware, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange to automate rich use cases, including the scheduling, attachment and expiration of space-efficient copies to application hosts.

· Multi-Array Management – XtremIO 4.0 allows single pane of glass management for multiple XtremIO clusters from a common XtremIO Management Server (XMS).

· More Powerful Interface – XtremIO 4.0 introduces extended historical reporting, maintaining two years of operating history, as well as sophisticated tagging and search functionality for handling large numbers of provisioned volumes, hosts and snapshots. It also boasts improved built-in reporting capabilities.

· More Scalable – XtremIO 4.0 supports more hosts per array, more X-Bricks per array and more snapshots than before.

· Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 3.0 – With XtremIO and the Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 3.0 offering, customers can now consolidate all mission-critical workloads and their non-production lifecycle copies into their Hybrid Cloud with Tier 0 Storage and Copy Services. This enables some of the most compelling hybrid cloud use cases like Database-as-a-Service and SAP-as-a-Service.

In the 18 months since becoming available, XtremIO has risen to become the fastest-selling product in EMC history and the market’s top-selling all-flash storage array according to IDC. XtremIO was also named a leader in the 2014 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Solid State Arrays. XtremIO extends its mission-critical capabilities even further for data center-scale workload consolidation with millions of consistent and predictable low-latency IOPS and always-on in-line data services. These capabilities uniquely deliver its all-flash performance for both production applications and their entire workflows including development, test, analytics and reporting. Such consolidations eliminate storage sprawl, simplify infrastructure with massive data reduction and enable breakthroughs in workflow agility.

Availability

The XtremIO 4.0 software along with 40TB X-Brick configurations will be orderable this calendar quarter.

Guy Churchward, president, EMC Core Technologies, says, “When we launched XtremIO we explained that ‘architecture matters,’ and in the past year this has been validated by the market as XtremIO became the #1 all-flash array in record time. With XtremIO 4.0, we’ve boosted that solid foundation with scale and data services that truly transform not just the speed at which applications run, but the entire way in which they’re deployed. XtremIO customers gain agility, simplicity and capabilities that help them make developers more productive, get applications deployed faster, and deliver higher quality. XtremIO is the strategic asset in the data center that simply redefines what’s possible.”