Dell Unity storage sets the new standard for midrange storage with a powerful combination of simplicity, modern design, affordable price point, and deployment flexibility — perfect for resource-constrained IT professionals in large or small companies. It delivers a full block and file unified environment in a single 2U enclosure. The system allows using the same pool to provision and host LUNs, consistency groups, NAS servers, file systems, and VMware® vSphere® Virtual Volumes™ (vVols) alike. The Unisphere™ management interface offers a consistent look and feel whether managing block resources, file resources, or both.
The Dell Unity file system is a 64-bit architecture introduced on the Dell Unity family of storage systems. This file system architecture allows for unprecedented scalability, efficiency, and flexibility, as well as a rich set of features to allow file storage administrators to leverage Dell Unity storage systems for a wide range of traditional and transactional NAS use cases. Whether configuring home directories or deploying performance-intensive applications on file storage, the Dell Unity file system provides the feature set and deep virtualization integration necessary for any storage environment.
The Dell Unity file system was designed to integrate seamlessly with Dell Unity block storage through similar configuration and management workflows that greatly reduce the management overhead traditionally associated with file storage. Similarly, the architecture allows file and block to share the same pools and features, resulting in a truly unified offering in the storage market. Features such as data protection and storage efficiency behave uniformly across file and block storage resources and benefit both equally.
In addition, Dell Unity storage offers advanced NAS capabilities to provide additional value. Dell Unity systems are designed to operate in networking environments with multiple VLANs, subnets, and gateways by providing advanced static routing and packet reflect. They also support multiple tenants residing on the same system by separating network traffic at the kernel level to provide enhanced security and dedicated network resources to each tenant. Common event enabler allows applications to scan for viruses and receive file event notifications for auditing, quota management, searching, indexing, and more. Cloud Tiering Appliance integration enables tiering to cloud repositories based on user-configured policies.
Unisphere provides a powerful unified management framework composed of an HTML5 user interface, command-line interface, and RESTful API allowing novice and experienced administrators alike to easily manage their file storage environments. Wizard-based file provisioning enables novice administrators to quickly get a file storage environment up and running. The CLI and RESTful API allow more seasoned administrators to create complex scripts to facilitate specific use cases, while still using the Unisphere user interface for daily provisioning and management tasks. Most importantly, file and block management functionality is available from within all interfaces, ensuring a uniform user experience regardless of the task. In addition, a Python StorOps storage management library and PowerShell cmdlets are available to manage Dell Unity systems.
