Dell continues to simplify storage for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) in the Middle East

According to IDC, demand for storage capacity continues to grow at a rate of nearly 60 percent per year.1 Small to medium-sized entities, including branch offices of larger organisations, increasingly face challenges related to data growth and management while IT budgets remain flat.

The Dell AX4-5 array can meet the needs of rapidly growing data capacity with the ability to expand up to 60 drives supporting up to 60TB data2. The Dell AX4-5 array can be configured for Fibre Channel or iSCSI networks and supports mixed drive configurations to suit customer-specific needs: SAS drives for high performance and SATA drives for greater capacity.

"This is the latest step in the strong partnership between Dell and EMC," said Michael Collins, General Manager, Dell Middle East.

"We've worked closely with EMC to define, design and deliver this system tailored to SMBs. Together we are delivering capabilities not previously seen in entry-level Fibre Channel SANs."

Additional features of the Dell AX4-5 include:

• Excellent Data Availability and Reliability: The Dell AX4-5 controllers provide end-to-end data integrity, through continuous background disk consistency checking, mirrored cache, and cache destaging in the event of a significant failure. The array is designed to protect data in the controller, on the drive, and throughout the data path.

• Simple Deployment and Advanced Management: The Dell AX4-5 comes with EMC Navisphere Express, an intuitive user interface that simplifies installation and operation. The Dell AX4-5 has also inherited many demonstrated software capabilities that have only been available on the more advanced Dell/EMC CX3 arrays. This allows for "single pane of glass" management for users with multiple EMC arrays, as well as optional data replication and migration tools which will be available soon.3

• Scalable Architecture: The Dell AX4-5 will be able to support up to 64 hosts and 60 drives across five enclosures to help keep up with data growth. With the simplified wizard-based management users can allocate additional capacity in as little as a minute.

• Flexibility and Drive Options: Dell AX4-5 iSCSI arrays support cost-effective IP networks, while Fibre Channel arrays utilize high performance 4Gb/s connections. The Dell AX4-5 can also easily mix SAS drives geared for performance with SATA drives that deliver cost-effective capacity.