Avere intros Edge Filer, new NAS architecture

NEW YORK, USA: Avere Systems unveiled a new NAS architecture, AOS 3.0, that will enable enterprises to leverage flash, virtualization and cloud.

According to the company, the new architecture for NAS puts the fastest media and the intelligence to manage it closest to the user, boosting performance and removing storage bottlenecks created by legacy NAS architectures.

Avere also introduces NAS filer, Edge filer, which operates in concert with legacy or core filers, to implement the new architecture for NAS.

The new data management capabilities available with AOS 3.0 allow customers to easily move, synchronize and replicate data between storage devices, from data centre to data centre or remote office, and from data centre to cloud, says a release.

"Since its inception, Avere has been challenging the concept of using a traditional, monolithic NAS filer as a single tier of storage," said Terri McClure, ESG, senior analyst. "With the introduction of its first full-fledged filer, the Edge filer, Avere is well positioned to offer an alternative model to solve some of the biggest technological and business challenges of NAS deployments, including the latency associated with remote storage deployments."

FlashMove and FlashMirror

FlashMove: Avere FlashMove takes the pain out of data migrations. With FlashMove, there is no need to halt applications or suspend access to data during migrations.

FXT Edge filers serve active data to application servers and users while behind the scenes FlashMove software moves data transparently between core

FlashMirror: Avere FlashMirror simplifies the implementation of a disaster recovery practice on a NAS infrastructure. FlashMirror replicates data on primary and secondary core filers and keeps them closely in sync by sending updates directly and in parallel to both filers.

FlashMirror offloads the replication-processing load from the storage and supports clustering to scale replication performance to any level required. FlashMirror is simple to install in existing environments and is the only storage-side replication solution that works with all NAS vendors products.

"Within the last few years, we've seen the potential benefits of powerful new technologies - flash, virtualization and cloud - be addressed in a piecemeal fashion by incumbent storage vendors that still rely on product architectures built for an older generation of technology and a twentieth-century data center silo. It's time for a fundamental change in NAS design -- one that opens up the network across the globe, makes it much easier to manage, and delivers efficiency without sacrificing performance," said Ron Bianchini, President and CEO of Avere Systems. "With the introduction of AOS 3.0 and the Avere Edge filer, we are poised to be a catalyst in enabling customers to reap the maximum benefits from the latest technologies."

AOS 3.0 will be generally available within the next 30 days. The 3.0 software release is a free upgrade for existing customers. For new and existing customers FlashMove and FlashMirror require separate licenses.