Dell added to its EqualLogic product line a new, highly-scalable array - the PS5500E - and introduced advanced software features, including the EqualLogic Auto-Snapshot Manager/VMware edition to improve data protection for virtual server environments.

The PS5500E builds upon Dell’s EqualLogic family with 24 or 48 terabytes of raw capacity in a 4U array – more than doubling the density and tripling the capacity of its predecessor model, the PS5000E, with equivalent hard disk drives. With the PS5500E, an EqualLogic SAN can scale up to 576 TB under a single management interface. This new array can be combined in the same SAN group with the existing EqualLogic systems. It provides an ideal solution for consolidating common tiered business data and applications such as file services, moderate I/O email, databases and virtual server environments. It can also be deployed for capacity-intensive near-line storage tiers and for disaster recovery sites.

Hosting company Sequestered Solutions Alaska recently launched Data Center Vault, an online client backup application for commercial and federal organizations, on an EqualLogic SAN. The company plans to expand the SAN with the new PS5500E, which it has tested thoroughly with its Microsoft SQL Server-based Data Center Vault application.

Dell is also simplifying and enhancing data protection for virtual infrastructures with a new feature included on all EqualLogic SANs: Auto-Snapshot Manager/VMware Edition. The unique ASM/VE software integrates EqualLogic snapshots directly with VMware Infrastructure 3 environments to provide fast online backups and quick restores of VMware virtual machines and VMFS file systems. The company expects to have ASM/VE available by the end of the month as a free download for customers with valid support contracts.

ASM/VE provides an easy-to-use graphical interface that coordinates the creation, recovery and scheduling of EqualLogic snapshots with VirtualCenter and VMware’s native snapshot technology. This offloads snapshot processing from the ESX Server and enhances protection, storage utilization, and performance of VMware-based virtual infrastructures. The resulting hypervisor-aware snapshot (Smart Copy) can be easily and rapidly recovered.

Pricing and Availability
The Dell EqualLogic PS5500E is available immediately through all worldwide Dell sales channels including a growing list of PartnerDirect channel organizations. List pricing for the PS5500E starts at $78,000 USD.

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