Xyratex Qualifies Arista Switches, Enabling New Storage Interoperability

HAVANT, United Kingdom, June 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Xyratex Ltd (Nasdaq: XRTX), a leading provider of data storage technology, today announced that it has qualified the Arista Networks 7050 Series of network switches for use with its ClusterStor™ family of scale-out high-performance computing (HPC) storage solutions. The selection of Arista's solutions is due to their high performance, low latency and industry-best buffer capacity - all critical attributes for data storage systems in the media and entertainment (M&E) and cloud industries. This new interoperability means more access to low-latency, fast, dense storage value for users.

For example, in the M&E industry today, competitive viability among organizations requires continued reduction in time to production while simultaneously managing enormous increases in digital content processing. Higher-resolution imaging standards, 3D technology and computer generated imagery (CGI) have led to exponential increases in data creation and the need for high-performance, scalable storage systems and network fabrics to store, process and manage all of that data.

"Scaling storage and server resources horizontally, especially within the media and entertainment market, requires high density, 10/40 GbE networking technologies," said Ed Chapman, vice president of business development at Arista Networks. "The Arista 7050 Series of data center switches provides a perfect complement to Xyratex's ClustorStor HPC storage solutions as users have the option of picking either speed, or combinations thereof depending on their needs. We are pleased to be working with Xyratex on these cutting-edge solutions." 

"As the top-performing HPC scale-out storage leader with appliance-like ease of use, ClusterStor delivers the performance and capacity scale needed to satisfy M&E's most intense digital content processing and rendering demands," said Todd Gresham, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Xyratex. "When you combine ClusterStor with hundreds or thousands of application servers supporting 10GbE and 40GbE connections over Arista-enabled high-speed networks, organizations now are able to regain control of escalating digital content processing costs and mitigate potential impact to project timelines."

ClusterStor enables several capabilities to solve challenges that M&E users face today.  Its scale-out storage architecture can scale performance and capacity in direct proportion to the number of servers, from dozens to tens of thousands, enabling ultra-fast, massively parallel rendering and production with up to 90 petabytes in a single namespace. It delivers a long-term active archive with nearline instantaneous file retrieval, so users can access content they need immediately and in a more reliable and accessible way. In addition, its low-latency, high-throughput video streaming capability can handle the sizable data workloads users are generating today, and then some.

Arista's network technologies provide users high-density network fabric scale with flexibility to meet compute and storage cluster deployment requirements. The Arista 7050 Series is a product line of 1RU 10GbE and 40GbE wire speed multilayer switches powered by the Arista EOS, the world's most advanced network operating system. Among other features, the switches offer:

• Dense virtualization, big data processing and storage in a flat two-tier Leaf/Spine design
• Non-blocking wire speed forwarding at both L2 and L3, up to 1.28 Tbps and 960 Mpps, Latency: 800ns-1200ns
• Density: 16 ports of 40GbE (Spine switch), 64 ports of 10GbE (top of rack switch)
• Low latency: from 800ns to 1200ns
• Low power usage, less than two watts per port

About Xyratex
Xyratex is a leading provider of data storage technology, including modular solutions for the enterprise data storage industry and hard disk drive (HDD) capital equipment for the HDD industry. Xyratex enterprise data storage platforms provide a range of advanced, scalable data storage solutions for the Original Equipment Manufacturer and High Performance Computing communities. As the largest capital equipment supplier to the HDD industry, Xyratex enables disk drive manufacturers and their component suppliers to meet today's technology and productivity requirements. Xyratex has over 25 years of experience in research and development relating to disk drives, storage systems and manufacturing process technology.

Founded in 1994 in an MBO from IBM, and with headquarters in the United Kingdom, Xyratex has an established global base with R&D and operational facilities in North America, Asia and Europe.

SOURCE Xyratex Ltd