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I’ve already write a post about Nimbus Data (during my last VMworld US I met the team and had a technical product overview) and describe their storage solution.

The core of the solution is the HALO operating system, and now the new release HALO 2013 provides new features at management layer:

  • powerful analytics to gauge the performance and efficiency of Nimbus Data flash memory arrays
  • a new REST-based API gives administrators full access to all Nimbus features and statistics, facilitating storage management in large multi-vendor data centers
  • a new mobile access with HALO Mobile that brings these advanced monitoring features to the palm of your hand, streaming live statistics directly to iOS and Android-based smartphones and tablets

HALO 2013 is free of charge to all existing Nimbus Data customers with active support contracts. Also note that all those new features are in the administration layer of HALO 2013:

Nimbus-Halo2013

Advanced Flash Memory Analytics

Nimbus-AnalyticsExtending Nimbus Data’s industry-leading unified storage, data protection, and efficiency features, the new HALO 2013 release adds powerful real-time and historical monitoring and reporting capabilities. Over 200 metrics are tracked, including flash endurance, capacity utilization, latency, power consumption, deduplication rates, and overall system health. Customers can view detailed port, host, and session-level statistics, easily navigating back-in-time to observe trends as well as honing in on specific data points at fine-grain intervals. A beautiful new web interfaces enables users to create customized dashboards highlighting key areas of interest, and built-in benchmarking creates IOps and throughput workloads to validate system performance. All statistics are stored in an industry-standard RRD format, enabling customers to utilize Nimbus tools as well as third-party charting software to view the results.

Open REST-based API

Targeting the needs of cloud infrastructure architects, HALO 2013 incorporates a powerful REST-based API (application programming interface), giving users the tools they need to easily integrate the administration and monitoring of Nimbus flash memory arrays into the rest of their data center infrastructure. Through the API, users can perform every function available, from provisioning iSCSI, Fibre Channel, Infiniband, and NFS datastores, to measuring deduplication and creating snapshots. The API captures all available statistics to feed into existing management software and analytics tools. Nimbus’ HALO API lets anyone build application-specific plug-ins, even full management software, eliminating costly license fees and proprietary single-vendor software.

Storage Management in the Palm of Your Hand

Nimbus-MobileNimbus Data’s storage platforms are also now the first all-flash arrays to feature mobile management, enabling real-time streaming of important system performance, utilization, and health information directly to Apple iOS and Google Android-based devices. Available now for free on the Apple iTunes Store and Google Play store, the HALO Mobile app leverages the API to allow users to monitor system events, view dynamic live charts, and much more, all SSL-encrypted for maximum security. HALO Mobile brings IT administrators closer to their infrastructure, even as data centers become more remote, larger and more complex, to improve service levels and reduce complexity.

Gemini Flash Memory Array

Storage now can scale up to 1 PB per rack, 48 TB per 2U system (with new custom SSD at 2 TB each), with 10 year endurance with MLC and Unified Storage (SAN + NAS).

On the front-end side it give maxium flexibility (Ethernet, FC, or Infiniband), and it’s also the first FDR Infiniband native flash array, first 40 GbE native flash array and first 16 Gb FC native flash array.

Note that it’s a really power-efficient flash array at as little as 8 W per TB.

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Virtualization, Cloud and Storage Architect. Tech Field delegate. VMUG IT Co-Founder and board member. VMware VMTN Moderator and vExpert 2010-20 and vExpert Pro. Dell TechCenter Rockstar 2014-15. Microsoft MVP 2014-16. Veeam Vanguard 2015-19. Nutanix NTC 2014-20. Several certifications including: VCDX-DCV, VCP-DCV/DT/Cloud, VCAP-DCA/DCD/CIA/CID/DTA/DTD, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, CCA, NPP.