NEC Launches M100 Storage System for Windows, Linux and VMware

 NEC Corporation of America (NEC), a leading provider and integrator of advanced communication and IT solutions, today launched the next generation of storage architecture, the M100 storage area networking (SAN) system. The M100 provides highly available and easily scalable storage that does not compromise performance or flexibility. M100 features complete array management suite for businesses of all sizes that includes snapshots, replication, performance management, multi-pathing, failover, compliance, energy conservation, and more.

 writes Mark Peters, senior analyst, ESG, in the company's recent product brief, "NEC M100: A Flexible, Scalable Data Storage System for Virtualized Environments."

In virtualized and clustered environments, the M100 has the ability to support LUN locking in a durable manner when multiple servers are accessing data, which eliminates access collisions, compromised data and sub-optimal performance. The M100 also provides highly available and easily scalable storage that does not compromise performance or flexibility while allowing faster access to data compared with the previous generation NEC D3/D3i storage solutions, all with great integrity and reliability.

The M100 is designed to address critical storage challenges including:

-- Rapid data volume growth

-- Energy-saving power and cooling efficiencies

-- Continuous accessibility

-- Scalable and efficient capacity management and data migration

-- Multiple layered virtualization across storage systems and storage management processes and tools

"ESG's product brief confirms that with the M100, NEC is delivering innovative scalability and adaptability efficiently for demanding virtualized environments," said Mike Mitsch, vice president, IT Platform Products, NEC. "The M-Series introduction marks another example of how NEC is looking ahead to provide ubiquitous access to data as more business critical information is stored in virtualized environments."

The M100 harnesses the powering of Intel(R) Xeon(R) processors, which includes integrated PCI Express 2.0 ports, non-transparent bridging, RAID 5 and 6 and connects to the Intel 3420 chipset. In addition, the M100 supports both Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage protocols for added flexibility.