Quantum expands, renames storage management tool

Quantum has enhanced and renamed its Vision storage management software, and added a low-end 9TB version of its DXi7500 enterprise disk backup device.

Vision manages both disk and tape storage and now provides better capacity monitoring, detailed trending and de-duplication statistics for DXi systems installed around the world, said Gabriel Chaher, Quantum's senior director for international product and field marketing, speaking at Storage Networking World Europe in Frankfurt, Germany.

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"It looks at how much capacity you have free and in the pool today, it does it again tomorrow and the day after, and it builds up a trend," he said. "We can't predict what's coming in, nor how much duplication it'll contain, but we can tell you what trend you're on."

Formerly called StorageCare Vision and now just Vision, the software has also been optimized for operation over the WAN and monitors all Quantum disk and tape products. That includes those released since the previous Vision version came out, such as the DXi7500, Chaher said.

Brian Garrett, technical director of ESG Labs, recently tested the new Vision software. "I found tools such as the de-duplication trend analysis to be an excellent example of Vision's rich capabilities. It should bring significant value to customers grappling with the challenges associated with effective management of their data protection resources," he said.

The new low-end DXi7500 should make it easier and cheaper for enterprises to buy into high-performance de-duplication, Chaher said.

Not only does it have half the disk capacity of the previous low-end model -- 16 750GB drives, in three RAID5 groups plus a hot spare -- but because it only has one shelf of hard drives, Quantum was able to trim its cost by removing the Fibre Channel switch that's in larger models.

The 9TB DXi7500 will not overlap with Quantum's midrange DXi5500 family, which offers similar capacity points, because the 5500 has much more limited growth capability, Chaher said.

"You don't need to change controllers, just put the Fibre Channel switch back in, for the same box to grow to the full 180T-byte capacity of the 7500," he said. "Plus the 7500 has policy-based de-duplication, which the 5500 doesn't."

The company said that Quantum Vision is available as software to run on a customer's Windows server, and costs from $7500 for a system licensed to manage two disk or tape systems. List pricing for the 9TB 7500DXi is around $135,000, Quantum said.