Dot Hill Systems
Next Generation Hybrid Storage Platform with RealStor

Unquestionably, for any enterprise that wants the most out of two storage worlds—flash and hard drive arrays hybrid storage is the best bet. For Dot Hill, who propagates the idea of “smart simple storage,” the core innovative initiative is all about hybrid. Offering software and hardware solutions for storing, sharing, protecting and managing data, Dot Hill puts forward their storage virtualization software, RealStor, as the next generation hybrid storage platform. With this, the company re¬moves the dilemma that troubles users most on whether their data should be on hard drives or flash. ”With RealStor, it’s about build¬ing hybrids which comprise both flash and hard disk drive capac¬ity,” remarks Kenneth Day, CTO of Dot Hill.

Day asserts that IT managers should not need to think so hard about storage. Compare this to other critical resources in a data center such as CPU utilization, where the server manages that resource without any manual intervention. Or consider memory management where the operating system determines how that memory resource should be optimized. But with most storage systems today, IT managers and administrators must actively determine how data is placed and managed across one or more storage resources.

“We see the future of hybrid in a storage system’s ability to figure out where data should be placed for optimal performance and response time,” says Day. For the technical head honchos in the company, hybrid is not only about flash and spinning disks in one storage system but the ability to drive more flexibility with the storage solution. Businesses today largely want a quality, robust solution at an affordable price point and RealStor is that innovative architecture which delivers on both customer needs. “RealStor responds to business needs in real-time delivering data where you need and when you need, for simple yet powerful data storage management,” asserts Day.

For a particular school district in California, that has 2000 cameras all over the campus, Dot Hill storage easily accommo¬dates computing workloads for video data conversion. For consolidating their video data the school requires two things.

First is fast storage to turn the raw video into an efficient compression format. And second is high capacity storage for retaining the video for 30 days. This is attained through Dot Hill’s hybrid storage system which consistently provides faster access to current data in real-time. This supports rapid access to the surveillance video as needed.

Apart from schools, another domain where Dot Hill products are seeing success is in data analytics. Customers are realizing that if they can examine their data, and draw meaningful conclusions from it, they can run more successful businesses. “Data analytics is an important area which requires a storage system that can do high transactions at high bandwidths,” says Day, owing to which Dot Hill’s scalable and high performance storage systems are compatible with computer-intensive applications for data analysis.

The company also confers a considerable amount of focus on high availability storage. This is mostly achieved by coupling hard¬ware with data management software which assists in recovery of critical business data regardless of the cause of failure. “We design a data storage infrastructure for high availability, and in case the storage controller fails, there is another controller for failover,” states Day. “We design our storage systems with a redundant design to safeguard customer data,” he adds.

We see the future of hybrid, in a storage system’s ability to figure out where data should be placed for optimal performance and response time

With their keen involvement in technical innovation, it is not surprising when Day confirms that the company will continue to rollout new generations of storage platforms that are faster with the ability to deliver more transactions. “Dot Hill is all about building innovative products. In our lab, we are working on new products due to release this year and for years to come,” ends Day.