Capital Institutional Services (CAPIS) has selected Emprise 5000 storage system to support its new “lights out” remote datacenter. The storage system is run by Intelligent Storage Element (ISE) technology and is stated to boost the security and availability of its highly confidential company and customer data.

 

CAPIS is a U.S. institutional broker specializing in global agency trading and commission management for asset managers and plan sponsors. The company states that due to the nature of CAPIS's real-time trading business, data protection and data availability are critical business necessities.

 

Xiotech Corporation deals in delivering the new foundation of storage with unprecedented reliability, performance and scalability. Their Emprise 5000 is a self-enclosed, virtual storage system that can be attached to servers either directly or via a Fibre Channel switch. The system offers three DataPac configurations, with a maximum capacity of 16 TB. Its performance also is linearly scalable, so that two systems roughly double the performance of one.

 

"When we learned about Xiotech's Emprise storage line and its promise of zero maintenance, it sounded like the best storage system to meet our needs," said Marcia Morrow, vice president, Technology Services, CAPIS. "Our customers' privacy, data security and data availability are vital to us, and after testing Emprise 5000 we knew it was absolutely the next step in creating a lights out datacenter."

 

CAPIS states that previously it used more than 80 servers with direct-attached storage in its in-house datacenter. As transactions increased they were running out of storage spaces and looked for a secure system to place their sensitive data. A ‘lights out’ datacenter promised to be a suitable one as it can continuously and automatically replicate and protect all of its data in real time without employee intervention. The company says as they began evaluating solutions it learned of Xiotech's new Emprise product line and joined the company's early adopter program.

 

Morrow added, "In the testing phase, the ISE technology impressed us on several fronts. We had no expectation that we'd be able to get the storage system, plug it in, run a quick configuration and be up and running, but that was exactly what happened. We'll be able to scale storage by simply adding Emprise 5000 systems which can eventually be used as part of an Emprise 7000 SAN system."

 

According to company officials, CAPIS implemented two Magnitude 3D 4000 storage systems from Xiotech earlier this year, before Emprise 5000 became generally available. The Magnitude 3D 4000 systems are supporting CAPIS's in-house datacenter and day-to-day operations, while the Emprise 5000 solution will serve as the building block for the new lights out datacenter. CAPIS plans to put it into full production next month. The system will provide a reliable, flexible storage foundation for the organization's virtualized environment.

 

ISE technology is capable of eliminating virtually all disk-related service events, through a combination of preventive and self-healing capabilities. Xiotech asserts that clients never have to worry about the safety and longevity of their data and in addition to that they also offer a five-year hardware warranty. ISE technology provides greatly improved and simplified scalability by pooling storage into a singular element that is 20 to 40 times the capacity of a typical disk drive, with the internal processing power and cache needed to handle all drive management functions.

 

"It's very rewarding to see organizations have the option to custom tailor a storage environment to meet their business needs," said Mike Hoch, vice president of Marketing, Xiotech. "By combining Xiotech's storage offerings, customers can benefit from the industry's easiest storage management with ICON Manager and Virtual View -- available with Magnitude 3D 4000 and Emprise 7000 and industry-leading price performance with Emprise 5000."