Storage array update breaks up data and app conflicts

Oracle has released new Pillar Axiom software with better management, replication and physically separated domains of data.

Pillar Data was the Larry Ellison-funded high-availability storage array startup, run by Mike Workman, which developed and introduced the Axiom arrays. These majored on storage quality of service, and the company was acquired by Oracle earlier this year at effectively zero cost - but with a potential earn-out after a few years if sales are strong enough.

Release 5 of the Axiom Storage System Software, which was probably in development before the acquisition, has three new features:

• Storage Domains have disparate customer, application or workload data separated securely and physically in drive groups in a single storage array. This enables non-stop upgradability and provides, Oracle says, "true multi-tenancy without the risk of co-mingling data on a single disk seen in other vendors’ offerings".
• MaxMan provides management of multiple Axiom storage systems anywhere from a single Java-based interface. It's pre-configured with storage management policy profiles for Oracle databases and other business applications.
• MaxRep replicates data between multiple Axioms in a synchronous or asynchronous fashion, locally, remotely and in multi-hop configurations.

Oracle says:

[Release 5] is a major step forward in storage consolidation for Oracle Database, Oracle Applications, and cloud computing environments, helping to improve performance and streamline data management with the combination of its modular architecture, QoS, and new interface. It also simplifies management of multiple data types and application workloads with easy-to-use application profiles pre-tuned for Oracle environments.

Mike Workman is now SVP for storage solutions at Oracle. The latest release supports Axiom 600 arrays and is compatible with previous Axiom 500 and 300 products. ®