EMC unveils new Celerra NX4 unified storage system

With a flexible design enabling it to be deployed in NAS (network attached storage), iSCSI and Fibre Channel SAN (storage area network) environments, and offering advanced functionality at no extra charge, the Celerra NX4 is the most cost-effective entry-level unified storage platform available on the market today.

The Celerra NX4 is ideally suited for small to medium-sized businesses and remote offices looking to consolidate distributed file servers and storage onto a single, easy to use platform. With EMC's Celerra Startup Assistant software, the Celerra NX4 can be powered up and configured in as little as 15 minutes. The centralized web-based Celerra Manager software makes system administration simple and intuitive with easy to use wizards and automated volume management, enabling administrators to provision a file system in just four mouse clicks.

Celerra thin provisioning dramatically simplifies storage management and improves storage efficiency, combining virtualization of storage to hosts and users along with advanced automated safeguards. Celerra SnapSure software allows for instant data protection while consuming minimal storage space, providing read-only and read-writable logical point-in-time copies of data that can be leveraged for user-driven data recovery and online backups.

"EMC's expertise in IP storage continues to yield the most cost-effective, reliable, and easy to use unified storage systems in the industry, fueling over 50% year-over-year revenue growth for our Celerra product line in the first half of 2008,"

said Mohammed Amin, Regional Manager, EMC Middle East & North West Africa.

"The Celerra NX4 extends the Celerra family's legacy of value, performance and high availability to a new market, ensuring that customers of all sizes can benefit from advanced features and management agility without straining their budgets. No other system in its class offers the built-in functionality and flexibility delivered with the Celerra NX4."

The Celerra NX4 supports Microsoft, Unix, Linux and VMware ESX Server operating environments and major applications including Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, Oracle, VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and VMware Site Recovery Manager, with proven reference architectures to speed deployment. Supporting up to 60 terabytes of capacity and configurable with up to 60 high-capacity SATA disk drives and/or high-performance SAS drives, the Celerra NX4 enables storage tiering based on availability, cost, and energy efficiency considerations while delivering industry-leading price/performance.

Based on the EMC CLARiiON AX4 system architecture, the Celerra NX4 provides the highest levels of data availability and reliability for a system in this class. Additionally, with EMC Celerra Replicator software for local and remote replication, business critical data can be automatically replicated to one or more secondary locations to ensure seamless business continuity and data protection.

"With nearly ninety affiliated facilities around the globe, we need a reliable, easy-to-use platform for our remote office storage operations," said Chuck Wiggins, Operations Manager, Guardian Industries Corp. "The Celerra NX4 offers simplified management that won't strain our IT staff resources, as well as the reliability and replication flexibility we need to ensure high data availability."

The Celerra NX4 will be offered by EMC partners worldwide, and complements the higher-capacity Celerra NS20 and Celerra NS40 systems to round out partners' unified storage portfolios. With EMC's comprehensive system training and streamlined ordering system, partners are assured greater agility to meet their customer's unique needs.

"Companies of all sizes are looking for ways to simplify their IT environments and get the most value from their storage and IT staffing investments," said Charles King, Principal Analyst, Pund-IT, Inc. "EMC's entry-level Celerra NX4 builds on the notable success of the Celerra NS20 and NS40 unified storage systems, helping customers control costs and consolidate distributed server and storage resources while assuring enterprise-class reliability and data protection."

The Celerra NX4 is generally available worldwide from EMC, its Velocity² Program Partners and Velocity² Authorized Services Network (ASN) Partners.