F5 Products Tighten Cloud Bonds
As we march inexorably toward the cloud, the pressure is on to provide a seamless computing environment between datacenters and cloud-based storage and applications. Toward that goal, F5 is offering major enhancements to its Data Solutions portfolio with the introduction of the iControl File Services Solution open storage management API, the ARX Cloud Extender, and the ARX Virtual Edition (VE) appliance.
F5 says the iControl file services API enables software vendors and customers to integrate ARX's file virtualization capabilities to enhance their existing data management solutions and enable entirely new applications. According to F5, "Via the API, customers can use ARX's real-time change notification capability to improve the scalability, responsiveness and efficiency of a range of third-party applications, such as search, index, backup, audit and quota management tools."
By extending ARX's intelligent, automated storage tiering capabilities to support cloud storage services, F5 says it has made it easier to seamlessly integrate cloud storage into existing IT infrastructures. Customers now have simplified data access, because files stored in the cloud are presented as if they reside locally in the data center. "In order to maximize the amount of data tiered to the cloud while minimizing IT overhead and access costs, customers can automatically identify and migrate appropriate files to cloud storage. The new solution is fully qualified for use with Amazon S3, Iron Mountain VFS cloud storage, and NetApp StorageGRID," the company said.
With the introduction of ARX VE, the solution will be available as a virtual appliance in addition to physical, hardware-based offerings. This extends the benefits of ARX beyond centralized data centers, and provides a variety of flexible, deployment options. "Using ARX VE, branch offices and smaller organizations can enjoy performance benefits of the ARX product line that have previously been associated with larger, physical deployments," F5 said. "ARX VE will be available via three distinct deployment options: a trial version for demonstrating purposes, a full version suitable for production environments, and through OEM partners."
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 12/16/2010 at 12:48 PM