HPCwire: BlueArc Announces Mercury Network Storage System

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July 07, 2009

BlueArc Announces Mercury Network Storage System

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Solution delivers unrivaled data management, scale and performance to redefine the economics of storage

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 7 -- BlueArc Corporation today introduced the BlueArc Mercury series: a premium, network storage platform that delivers exceptional business and technological benefits to the commercial midrange market. A leader in scalable, high-performance unified network storage, BlueArc designed the Mercury platform to deliver its award-winning data management, scalability and performance in a midrange solution that overcomes the storage challenges faced today by an ever-increasing number of customers.

As the volume of unstructured, file-based data continues to explode, and retention and archiving demands increase, companies of all sizes struggle to keep pace. While traditional network storage solutions have offered some relief, they have resulted in the unintended creation of storage silos, filer sprawl, poor utilization rates and lagging performance. BlueArc Mercury addresses these storage inefficiencies with a powerful file system and hardware platform that allows companies to consolidate users, applications and storage systems in order to lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) of their storage infrastructure, all without giving up performance.

"Many midsize companies face enterprise-sized storage challenges and until now, traditional solutions have created unintended downstream challenges and costs," said Michael Gustafson, president and CEO of BlueArc. "The Mercury Series brings the power of five generations of proven BlueArc technology to the customer who's unwilling to compromise on price, scalability or performance. This midrange solution squarely meets the needs of today's customers who are pressured to manage growth and accomplish more with less cost and with reduced complexity."

A Storage Analyst's View

"The rapid growth in unstructured data and rich content is a growing problem for all businesses, but to date, only larger enterprises could afford the large, high-performance, file-based storage solutions required to address this growth," noted Richard Villars, vice president of storage systems research at IDC. "Solutions like BlueArc's new Mercury platform will make it possible for midsized enterprises to cost-effectively address their own unstructured data needs without sacrificing performance."

BlueArc Mercury Benefits

The Mercury platform is the first to deliver BlueArc's advanced file system performance and crucial data management functionality at a midmarket price point. Mercury's performance and scalability support greater utilization of storage infrastructure to increase storage efficiency and promote consolidation. At the heart of Mercury is SiliconFS, BlueArc's field-proven and award-winning file system. SiliconFS is the central engine that manages all data movement within Mercury, delivering sustained, predictable performance across the storage infrastructure. It includes a comprehensive virtualization tool set which simplifies administration of the file system, as well as enabling BlueArc Intelligent Tiered Storage.

Intelligent Tiered Storage comprises BlueArc Data Migration and Dynamic Read Caching capabilities, which are supported by policy-based management functionality. These advanced features allow administrators to set policies based on common file attributes or access patterns to ensure that data is automatically and transparently migrated to the appropriate tier of storage -- optimizing cost and performance.

"More and more, customers have created tiers of storage within their infrastructures in order to match the value of the content being stored to the right-value storage tier," said Bridget Warwick, vice president of marketing at BlueArc. "However, what they have found is that it is tremendously difficult, if not impossible, to actually move the data from one tier and system to another. With BlueArc's built-in intelligent tiering, customers can employ policies to quickly and transparently move data from one tier to another without affecting system performance or requiring administrative time."

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