EMC's CLARiiON line of products are midrange storage arrays that now scale from 4 to 960 drives. The primary products in the line include the entry level AX4 offering, with mix-and-match SAS or SATA drive support for up to a maximum of 60 drives; the CX3 "UltraScale" line scaling from 5 to 480 drives and supporting the use of mixed SATA and Fibre Channel drives in the same system; and the new CX4 line, with up to double the performance and capacity of the CX3s. All but the AX4 include both FC and iSCSI ports; with the AX4 the user can choose FC or iSCSI ports.

The AX4 can be deployed as a single or dual storage processor system (2U or 3U) with up to 12 drives and support for up to 10 hosts; and can further be connected (via 3 Gb/sec SAS) to up to 4 expansion units for a maximum total of 60 drives and support for up to 64 hosts. Single controller systems, and dual controller systems without the expansion pack can utilize only SATA drives; while dual controller systems with the expansion pack can mix and match SAS and SATA drives in any of the enclosures. The AX4 can be purchased with up to 4 FC or 4 iSCSI ports.

A key feature of the AX4 as touted by the vendor is its certification for use in VMware environments (Windows, Linux, NetWare, Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX are all also supported), including support for VMware Storage VMotion. The AX4 ships with an Express version of NaviSphere and also includes point-in-time snapshot capabilities and the vendor's PowerPath software; while NaviSphere Manager (including SnapView), MirrorView and SAN Copy (FC only), and Replication Manager are all listed as optional (see below).

The CX3 series of arrays support Fibre Channel or SATA drives--including mixed-drive implementations. The CX3-10 supports up to 60 drives, the CX3-20 120 drives, the CX3-40 240 drives, and the CX3-80 480 drives. Each of the CX3 series arrays supports the Windows, Linux, AIX, Solaris, VMware, and HP-UX operating systems. The CX-10, 20, and 40 models each support the addition of iSCSI ports (with support for all but VMware hosts): The CX-10 is equipped with 4 FC and 4 IP ports; the CX-20 can be equipped with 12 FC OR 4 FC and 8 IP ports; and the CX-40 can be equipped with 8 FC OR 4 FC and 8 IP ports. The CX-80 ships with 8 FC ports.

The new CX4s doubly nearly all the metrics of the CX3 series; with the low-end CX4 120 supporting up to 128 hosts and 120 drives, and the high-end CX4 960 supporting up to 512 hosts and 960 drives (with an add-on option). The higher performance and capacity, according to the vendor, is the result of a new 64 bit O/S leveraging Intel multi-core processors. Other improvements in the CX4s include support for Solid-State drives (in the 480 and 960 models only), support for the vendor's Virtual Provisioning (thin provisioning) technology, integration with VMware Site Recovery Manager, and support for low power 1 TB SATA disk drives. Also, ports can be expanded non-disruptively in the CX4s from the base of 4 FC and 4 iSCSI to up to 12 FC and 8 iSCSI in the CX4 120; to from 8 FC and 4 iSCSI to 24 FC and 16 iSCSI in the CX4 960. Host counts above represent dual connected (multi-path) hosts; support for single connected hosts would be double the number listed.

Among the key available software options for the CLARiiON series arrays are the Web based (or CLI) Navisphere Management Suite tool featuring management and online LUN expansion capabilities; SnapView, offering the ability to create local point-in-time copies of data that can be used for testing, backup, and recovery operations; dynamic load-balancing and multiple-path failover via PowerPath; MirrorView for remote data mirroring; SAN Copy for copying data between multi-vendor storage gear; and RecoverPoint for CDP.

The CLARiiON line, including the new CX4s, is available now. The AX4 starts at approximately $8,000; while the new CX4 120 starts at approximately $31,000. (EMC notes that Flash drive and virtual provisioning capabilities will not be available until October.)

Visit the EMC Web site for further information.