New Dell Storage Features Enable NAS and SAN to Work Together

In an effort to help customers consolidate their storage infrastructures, Dell today announced enhancements to its PowerVault NAS servers that enable simple integration with high-end Dell-EMC SANs. This comes after the “handshake” agreement announced last week between Dell and EMC which will see Dell manufacturing versions of EMC’s low end Clariion network storage systems. The two companies have yet to put pen to paper on the deal, but today’s announcement from Dell would make it appear that completion of the deal is little more than a formality.

According to Dell, the new NAS and SAN enhancements give customers the flexibility to choose whichever system suits their storage needs today, with the capability to expand the system for future storage growth. Dell worked with EMC to merge the functions of PowerVault NAS and Dell-EMC SAN architectures to help leverage their SAN investment when implementing a NAS and to provide greater capacity and scalability to their NAS platform.

The new offering demonstrates the momentum of the Dell and EMC strategic relationship and illustrates how customers are benefiting from increased capabilities, services and low-cost storage solutions.

As companies migrate towards next-generation storage technologies, they need the assurance that their existing storage investments will integrate with newer systems — a reality that is driving the convergence of NAS and SAN platforms.

Ideal for small businesses with plans to eventually migrate to a SAN or enterprises with SANs installed and in need of additional file sharing capabilities or extra storage, the integration of the PowerVault 750N and 755N with Dell-EMC Fibre Channel storage arrays bring the benefits of low cost, easy-to-add network storage into the SAN. This enhancement increases the performance of general-purpose servers, while providing the availability and disaster recovery benefits needed for business continuance.

The new Dell NAS on SAN integration is one of the industry’s first solutions for connecting NAS systems across all environments within the same network infrastructure, including SCSI and Fibre Channel/Direct Access Storage (DAS).

This capability gives customers the flexibility to leverage emerging technologies to extend the power of their storage systems through consolidation. Customers can also take advantage of one common storage software platform for Microsoft Windows(R)-powered Dell PowerVault NAS and Dell-EMC SAN solutions to help simplify management, reduce costs and increase data protection.

“As we strive to help our customers consolidate their storage infrastructures, we will continue to work with EMC to evolve our network storage systems to offer increased return-on-investment and a lower total cost of ownership,” said Russ Holt, vice president of Dell’s Enterprise Systems Group. “The integration of PowerVault NAS with Dell-EMC SANs removes the confusing decision of NAS or SAN by providing customers with the flexibility to enable both storage solutions while leveraging a common storage infrastructure.”