Fujitsu offers Software-Defined Storage for Enterprise Needs

Fujitsu today introduces the second-generation FUJITSU Storage ETERNUS CD10000, its hyperscale software-defined storage system. The ETERNUS CD10000 S2 now provides more powerful tools to meet the data handling challenges of the petabyte age.

Based on the open source unified, distributed storage system Ceph, Fujitsu’s ETERNUS CD10000 provides unlimited and cost-efficient modular scalability for both storage capacity and performance, at zero downtime. It is delivered with end-to-end system management for soft- and hardware and includes maintenance and quality assurance for the whole system – including third-party components – enabling customers to enjoy the cost benefits of using open source based technology while also assuring enterprise-class support.

Bernhard Brandwitte, Vice President, Global Storage Business at Fujitsu says: “The ETERNUS CD10000 revolutionizes the way that organizations deal with ever-increasing online data. Fujitsu was the first global storage technology provider to enable organizations to regain control over spiralling storage costs, by removing system bottlenecks with a hyperscale, open source-based storage optimization platform for online storage. We can now store 10 times more data at the same data center space while reducing costs per terabyte by as much as a factor of tencompared to the previous generation.”

The new ETERNUS CD10000 S2 helps to reduce storage costs and space requirements in the data center. New types of storage nodes can host up to 60 TB of data in a single rack unit, further reducing space requirements. New hard- and software functions and technologies also reduce the cost per TB by a factor of up to ten.²

New design storage nodes called ‘Flex Node’ and ‘Density Node’ enable higher granularity in adding capacity and performance. Flex Nodes support storage performance-oriented usage scenarios while providing good scalability, while Density Nodes are optimum for storing large amounts of data in a minimum amount of space and at the lowest possible costs per terabyte (as low as between EUR 0.007 to 0.013 per GB per month). Simply by adding system nodes, the ETERNUS CD10000 S2 can cover capacity up to 50 PB and beyond, supporting scenarios of unpredictable data growth.

Since the ETERNUS CD10000 S2 internal system management is based on Ceph software, older hardware nodes can be replaced by fully compatible newer generations without system downtime, therefore extending system lifecycle by 10 to 15 years in comparison with traditional RAID storage systems. This also drastically reduces system migration requirements.

One of Fujitsu’s latest contributions to the Ceph open source community has been an optimized Erasure Coding, providing data protection through redundancy while reducing disk capacity requirements and costs.

A further enhancement to the ETERNUS CD10000 S2 is the support for more disaster resilience options, achieved by either stretching one storage node cluster across two sites, or by implementing two discrete system clusters. As traditional backup solutions reach their limits in the multi-petabyte dimensions, Fujitsu has introduced an innovative backup-in-a-box concept to provide large-scale data protection. This adds flexibility and the ability to deal with complete site failure, while ensuring fast data recovery, even on a massive scale.

Based on existing customer scenarios, Fujitsu has developed validated solutions enabling a fast implementation of software-defined storage. These solutions cover Enterprise File Sync & Share, online archives and cloud back-up. For OpenStack projects where Ceph-based storage is the most suitable storage architecture, Fujitsu recently announced PRIMEFLEX for OpenStack, a complete solution that integrates ETERNUS CD10000 with Fujitsu’s PRIMERGY servers and OpenStack cloud software. Fujitsu is an active contributor to the OpenStack Initiative and recently attained Gold Membership