Dell EqualLogic PS Series Architecture

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EqualLogic PS Series Architecture

"It’s just the elegance of the technology – I’m impressed every time I use it. We can do so much more than ever before. Anything that we want to store and replicate is going on the SAN."

– Bob Munson, Bay Cove’s Network Engineer

Overview

Key Benefits

Related Info

Dell’s EqualLogic storage solutions deliver the benefits of consolidated networked storage in a self-managing, iSCSI storage area network that is affordable and easy to use, regardless of scale. By eliminating complex tasks and enabling fast and flexible storage provisioning, these solutions dramatically reduce the costs of storage acquisition and ongoing operations.

Patented page-based volume management enables automatic movement of data while it is in use. This technology provides the foundation for online expansion, automatic configuration and load balancing, performance optimization, and advanced software functionalities — all with continuous access to data. That means no downtime for increasing capacity, moving data between storage tiers, or load balancing storage, and most management tasks are handled by the array, not the administrator. As a result, the EqualLogic PS Series of arrays makes enterprise-class shared-block storage practical for all servers and applications.

With its unique peer storage architecture, the PS Series delivers high performance and availability in a flexible environment with low cost of ownership. Whether you are seeking to consolidate storage, migrate from DAS or NAS, streamline data protection, or expand capacity, the PS Series of proven, self-managing storage arrays will meet the demanding requirements of your business-critical environment.

Unique Peer Storage Architecture
With the patented peer storage architecture — where “peer” means collaboration and equal partnership in a single, simple architecture — components and arrays work together to share resources, distribute loads, and collaborate for maximum performance, total data protection, and seamless scaling. This architecture enables the array to perform numerous functions that eliminate complexity, including:

A fully functional array within 60 minutes after opening the box.
Continuous resource monitoring and automatic management of configuration, load-balancing, capacity expansion, storage pools and tiers, volume snapshots, and replication.
Online, on-demand capacity expansion without disruption, including dynamic allocation of disk space, connectivity, security, and performance for every application.
Comprehensive system monitoring, proactive disk drive scanning, group event notifications, multi-pathing, instant recovery, and disaster protection.
A comprehensive toolkit to facilitate the deployment, ongoing management, and protection of PS Series SANs in Microsoft Windows OS environments.

Modular Design and Enterprise Reliability
With the modular design of the EqualLogic PS Series, you can buy only the amount of storage needed today and seamlessly add additional arrays in the future without disrupting business operations. Enterprise reliability features include fault tolerance; fully redundant, hot-swappable components (including disks, controllers, network interfaces, power supplies, and cooling fans); self-tuning, battery-backed, mirrored controller caches; hot sparing; support for RAID 5/10/50; and 99.999% availability.

Standards-Based Design Means Savings and Full Compatibility
Dell’s EqualLogic storage solutions leverage both the cost advantages and management simplicity of Ethernet technology. EqualLogic PS Series arrays use industry-standard protocols, disk drives, and network interfaces to provide low connection costs and high performance access to data. In addition, EqualLogic storage solutions support all leading operating systems and host applications, eliminating application incompatibility problems.