Symantec announces Storage Foundation update

Symantec today announced a new version of its Storage Foundation software, enabling data centres to leverage Solid State Drives “In ways that could allow customers to access mission critical data and applications 400 percent faster than traditional Storage Area Networks.”

Storage Foundation 6.1 functionalities and benefits includes a vendor-agnostic intuitive caching layer, which is enabled by Symantec’s SmartIO technology. SmartIO detects critical application workloads and caches only the hot data on local SSDs, Symantec says.

Flexible Storage Sharing (FSS) technology enables servers to access remote data as if it were from local storage. Symantec claims that this allows organisations to reduce storage costs by up to 80 percent using commoditised storage hardware, while helping to ensure that all data is replicated, protected, and available.

“IT organisations are challenged to manage massive data growth and improve performance without significantly increasing costs or complexity,” said Pete Hazen, Director, Marketing, non-volatile memory solutions group, Intel.” Intel’s Data Center Family of Solid-State Drives complement Symantec’s latest Storage Foundation product to deliver fast, reliable and consistent performance that leverages existing infrastructures for easy deployment and greater cost-efficiency.”