EqualLogic Expands Portfolio of Software Features with Thin Provisioning.

Thin Provisioning Storage Resource Management Tool Can Reduce Customers' Total Cost of Ownership

NASHUA, N.H. -- EqualLogic([R]), a leading provider of enterprise-class iSCSI storage area network (SAN) solutions, today expanded the portfolio of software features included in its PS Series storage arrays. A key new feature, thin provisioning, extends the value of the EqualLogic peer storage architecture by improving utilization and scalability while helping IT organizations reduce their total storage costs, according to leading IT analysts.

Thin provisioning is a method of storage resource management and virtualization that lets IT administrators limit the allocation of actual physical storage to what applications immediately need. It enables the automatic addition of capacity on demand up to pre-set limits, so that IT departments can avoid buying and managing excessive amounts of disk storage.

"Insatiable storage growth, coupled with staff shortages and budget constraints, make thin provisioning a strategically important feature, which is currently offered by only a handful of vendors," said Stan Zaffos, research vice president at Gartner. "Thin provisioning's profound benefits for IT organizations include improved staff productivity, higher end-user satisfaction rates, increased storage utilization, more accurate capacity forecasts, and smaller environmental footprints - all of which mean reduced costs. For this reason, Gartner recommends including at least one storage system that offers thin provisioning on any shortlist."1( ) (Find Gartner's thin provisioning report at www.equallogic.com/resources/analysreportsview.aspx?id=360.)

Thin provisioning extends EqualLogic's existing provisioning features that automate the key functions needed to configure, manage and scale storage by further cutting administration times for volume and capacity growth. This makes the buy-as-you-grow storage model of the modular PS Series more seamless for servers and applications. EqualLogic's thin provisioning capability provides extensive flexibility and user safety controls. These include the ability to turn thin provisioning on and off as needed for any volume.2 This allows users to affordably test the most suitable applications and volumes for thin provisioning, with the knowledge that they can return to "normal" provisioning online. The PS Series includes proactive, user-defined threshold alarms and controls on automatic space allocation that minimize the possibility of a "run" on storage that could fill capacity of a thinly provisioned SAN.

"EqualLogic's continued inclusion of simplified software features puts more control in my hands and makes running the firm's IT operations much easier," said Alan Hunt, operations manager at law firm Dickinson Wright. "EqualLogic has taken their time to build thin provisioning right, with useful controls and safety measures that make administrators like me more at ease with the technology. Thin provisioning is particularly useful for me, because it allows me to auto-grow my Windows boot volumes when booting-from-SAN, without any disruption to the servers or applications."

EqualLogic customers who have tested the improvements to the PS Series include law firm Dickinson Wright, French mobile operator Bouygues Telecom, and beverage giant Fosters' EMEA.

"Providing features such as thin provisioning as a standard product offering improves storage management for all our customers and raises the bar for competitors that insist on nickel and diming customers," said John Joseph, EqualLogic's vice president of marketing. "This release continues EqualLogic's promise of delivering strategic storage management capabilities as part of a fully featured enterprise-class SAN. For our customers, it means they don't have to pull out their wallet when they want to add software for replication, snapshots, tiering, or when they've filled the capacity of their thinly provisioned volumes and need to buy another license."

EqualLogic also announced a number of enhancements aimed at providing better flexibility and control for customers. These include:

-- Administrative management features
      -- Roles-based management to limit access to and customize views
         of particular pools of storage for authorized administrators.
         For example, both archiving and database specialists could
         manage storage for their own data, without seeing or
         affecting the others'. This is useful for ISP and
         ASP hosted services.
      -- Historical performance trending analysis, measuring
         IOPS and latency

-- EqualLogic auto-replication improvements
      -- Optimized fail-back for testing disaster recovery and for
         quickly moving services between disaster recovery locations
      -- Manual initial replication for fast deployment of recovery
         sites with limited bandwidth between sites

Availability and Pricing

The new features will all be available in Version 3.2 of the EqualLogic PS Series software, available in Q2 2007. All PS series customers under valid warrantee or support agreement can upgrade their software at no extra cost.

About EqualLogic

EqualLogic makes data storage systems that radically simplify the way mid-size and large businesses store and protect information. EqualLogic's award-winning PS Series storage area network (SAN) solution provides sophisticated management capabilities that reduce the time and money IT staff spend on storage. EqualLogic serves thousands of customers in 35 countries from its headquarters in Nashua, New Hampshire, and offices throughout Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit http://www.equallogic.com.

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EqualLogic is a registered trademark of EqualLogic, Inc. Other marks belong to their respective owners.

1 Zaffos, Stanley (April 18, 2007). Thin Provisioning Is Revolutionizing Storage Management. Gartner. 2 Thin provisioning can be turned off as long as there is enough physical storage to support the allocated volume.