Dell OEMs Data Domain and Celerra

Initially the DX will be available with software for healthcare, file and email archiving, eDiscovery and content management before July. Dell's Medical Archiving Solution will be based on the DX product and intended for the storage of electronic medical records, medical images, genomics and other healthcare information.

Dell will also supply ProConsult professional services for data archiving.

Data Deduplication

The Dell/EMC DD Series are three OEM'd Data Domain boxes; specifically the DD140, DD610 and DD630. These employ Data Domain's inline sub-file level deduplication technology. The larger DD 660, 690 and 880 products are not being taken by Dell.

The existing DL2100 appliances come with either Symantec Backup Exec 2010 or CommVault Simpana 8 backup and deduplication software and are positioned as value-oriented products for small and medium enterprises. The DX range takes Dell deduplicating storage arrays up into larger enterprises.

Unified Storage

Dell is also OEM'ing EMC's Celerra products, which were originally network-attached storage (NAS) boxes but have become unified storage with block access added. Dell calls these products the Dell/EMC NS Series, and the products are the NS-120, NS-480, and NS-960.

Dell also announced the PowerVault NX3100, a dense NAS storage product that can also handle block data, and store 24TB internally and 384TB externally. It has been validated with Dell's PowerVault, EqualLogic and EMC storage products.

The addition of EMC's Celerra and Data Domain boxes to Dell's storage range has been expected and gives the company a greatly expanded storage range. It should cause external deduplication array and unified file/black product supplier attach rates in Dell accounts to drop. Immediate losers look likely to be Quantum, with its DXi deduplication products, NetApp with its unfied storage, and other NAS/block suppliers.

Once again Dell has surprised observers by going its own way, with object storage this time, albeit with component partners. It may be that Centera was thought to be too proprietary and expensive, particularly as Dell has an open and affordable mantra.

Dell has broadened its storage offering to cover iSCSI and Fibre Channel block storage, file and object storage, and deduplicated and archival storage for small, medium and large enterprises. It is still shy, if that's the word, of supplying the very largest storage products, such as EMC's Symmetrix or the larger Data Domain products, but it is now building a software eco-system for its object storage and offering storage consulting services.

It is still a box shipper but one with a broadened range of services from its 41,000-plus service professionals and one with a significantly wider set of storage products. Combine this with the allied server, cloud and infrastructure management announcements, and this makes today a very big one in Dell's announcement history.

Availability

The DX product should arrive in the second quarter of this year, with the SDK becoming available in April. The Dell/EMC DD Series products are available now, as are the DL2100 products. The Dell/EMC NS-120 and NS-80 are planned to be available in April, as is the NX3100, with the NS-960 coming in May.

No pricing information was revealed. ®