Symantec offering enables data centres to adopt SSDs

Symantec has revealed a new version of its Storage Foundation software, enabling data centers to leverage Solid State Drives (SSDs) in ways that could allow customers to access mission critical data and applications 400 percent faster than traditional Storage Area Networks (SANs).

According to the security solutions provider it is also the only offering to provide these benefits regardless of which storage hardware components are in place.

As a result customers are free to choose any storage infrastructure provider, and businesses can make critical decisions faster.

“Symantec’s latest offering is designed to help customers leverage the next generation of storage. In today’s information-centric world, businesses want both increased performance and cost savings – and it doesn’t make fiscal sense to rip and replace existing storage to deploy new technologies like flash," says Ashish Nadkarni, research director, Storage Systems, IDC.

'However, with Storage Foundation 6.1, customers can ease into the adoption of new technologies, while mixing and matching high-end solutions with traditional hardware, without sacrificing existing service levels.”

Nadkarni believes the growth of mission-critical data and applications, supporting real-time decision-making, is driving SSD adoption to increase performance within the data center.

Adoption however has lacked the central management intelligence that customers need to manage their storage efficiently and effectively. Symantec claims its offering solves this problem while allowing customers to combine SSDs with existing Direct Attached Storage (DAS) and SANs without compromising availability.

“IT organisations are challenged to manage massive data growth and improve performance without significantly increasing costs or complexity," says Pete Hazen, director of marketing, non-volatile memory solutions group, Intel.

"Intel’s Data Center Family of Solid-State Drives complement Symantec’s latest Storage Foundation product to deliver fast, reliable and consistent performance that leverages existing infrastructures for easy deployment and greater cost-efficiency.”