Xiotech Targets VDI Deployments with Emprise 9000 Array

Xiotech today unveiled a new set of hardware and software products that turn the company’s Intelligent Storage Element (ISE) systems into a storage platform for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployments.

Working off the fact that many VDI deals are stuck on the cost of storage, Xiotech unveiled the Emprise 9000 storage system, built on ISE technology, as well as ISE Manager software and ISE Analyzer software. Together, the new products are aimed at lowering the storage costs associated with VDIs.

Xiotech claims the ISE platform delivers near-SSD performance at the cost and reliability of HDDs – a combination necessary when supporting performance-starved applications like VDI.

“There are applications where performance is paramount, but the cost of SSDs prohibits customers from even getting started,” said Brian Reagan, chief marketing officer, Xiotech. “The first of these applications is VDI, which tends to have very random I/O loads and tends to be bursty. It is very difficult for traditional storage architectures to keep pace in these environments.”

Enter: The Emprise 9000

The newest member of the Emprise family of scale-out storage systems, the Emprise 9000 is based on Xiotech’s next-generation storage controller technology. The array can scale from two to 12 controllers and up to 1.8PB of storage capacity.

The Emprise 9000 allows applications like VDI direct, high performance control of ISE storage resources and development of additional applications and automated controls through the CorteX API. It also includes functionality inherent in traditional storage arrays like snapshots, thin provisioning, replication, and cloning.

ISE Manager – a newly branded version of the Xiotech ICON Manager management interface – works with new ISE Analyzer software to give customers the ability to forecast, provision, manage and measure storage performance and utilization across any number of ISE units. ISE Manager enables users to deploy and provision storage as part of an internal storage cloud instead of individual devices, while ISE Analyzer reports, analyzes and predicts storage performance and capacity.

ISE Manager will be licensed on a per-ISE basis for $1666.67. ISE Analyzer can be deployed as an appliance for $15,921 or via a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) subscription.

Pricing for the Emprise 9000 was not available by press time.

Xiotech’s aim is to move upstream and raise its presence in enterprise environments. “Xiotech has been known as an SMB focused company with midrange storage systems. When our new management team arrived, all of whom had an enterprise heritage; we realized ISE was infinitely scalable. It just needed the packaging and some new capabilities to bring it into the enterprise,” said Reagan.

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