3Par adds autonomic tiering with new storage software

Adaptive Optimisation supports 3PAR's InServ F-Class and T-Class arrays

Storage firm 3PAR has introduced tools that provide storage tiering at the sub-volume level on its InServ storage servers.

The company also announced support for enterprise-grade solid state drives (SSDs) from Stec, and said that this combination will help customers to meet service level targets while cutting costs.

Introduced today and available to order immediately, 3PAR's Adaptive Optimisation software is designed to achieve the most efficient distribution of data without administrator intervention, leading 3PAR to claim that it is the first storage array vendor to deliver autonomic storage tiering.

The software optimises at the sub-volume level, so InServ F-Class and T-Class arrays using SSDs require fewer of these costly drives to meet stringent performance targets.

3PAR said that its InServ arrays using Adaptive Optimisation are able to achieve desired service levels by combining multiple storage tiers made up of SSD, Fibre Channel and enterprise Sata drives within a single volume, delivering a lower overall cost per gigabyte than configurations using just Fibre Channel.

"We believe that bringing autonomic storage tiering to enterprise and cloud datacentres promises not only to reduce costs and deliver additional green benefits, but to increase storage infrastructure agility and the ability to handle changing and unpredictable workloads in virtualised environments," said 3PAR chief executive David Scott.

The 3PAR Adaptive Optimisation software is priced from £960, and requires 3PAR System Reporter version 2.7 or newer.

3PAR also announced support for the MACH8IOPS SSDs from Stec, which are described as a new class of cost-efficient and power-efficient enterprise storage device.

SSDs for InServ storage arrays will be available from the next quarter, and are compatible with F-Class and T-Class arrays running the latest version of the 3PAR InForm platform. Pricing for SSDs will start at £15,400 per InServ array.