Q&A with Rob Commins of Tegile Systems

VSM: Tell me about Tegile Systems. What does the company do?

RC: Tegile Systems is pioneering a new generation of affordable feature-rich storage arrays that are dramatically faster and can store more data than standard arrays. Incorporating Tegile’s unique metadata handling technology, MASS™, Zebi arrays deliver caching and on-the-fly de-duplication and compression for primary storage. Customers in the financial services, manufacturing, government, legal, healthcare and transportation industry sectors have deployed Zebi as primary storage in virtualized server, virtualized desktop (VDI), file services and database environments as well as for replicated storage. The company is led by a successful team of industry veterans and is committed to a philosophy of “customer first.”

VSM: What application areas or use cases are most suited to your solution?

RC: Tegile Systems provides feature-rich storage arrays for the enterprise. Regarding suitability, IT departments should ask seven key questions when they are trying to choose an array:

1. Capacity – Does the array have the capacity I need and the ability to expand?
2. Performance – Is the array fast enough for my current needs and anticipated growth?
3. Compatibility – Will the array work with my servers, file systems, and network?
4. Usability or fit for purpose – Can the array be configured for the application(s) it’s intended to host without adding complexity?
5. Reliability – Can we rely on the array to stay online even if a component fails?
6. Data protection – Does the array have features to help protect my data and comply with government regulations?
7. Value for money – Can we afford the array and if so, are the features commensurate with the price?

VSM: Companies are always on the lookout for innovative ways to optimize their storage, what are the efficiencies that Tegile Systems brings to the equation?

RC: Our Zebi arrays leverage the performance of SSD and low cost per TB of high capacity disk drives to deliver five times the performance and up to 75% less capacity required than to legacy arrays. We don’t simply use SSDs as a tier of storage in our arrays, Tegile has architected the performance benefits of SSDs throughout the data path, giving every application a performance boost.

Through the deep integration of SSD and caching technologies, Tegile systems deliver five times the performance of legacy arrays. These performance gains are recognized by applications even when their data ultimately lands on hard disk drives. High IOPS and low latency for everyone.

Additionally, up to 75% less capacity is required with Tegile Zebi arrays. In-line compression and de-duplication are used on SSD and hard disk drive media throughout the array. This allows customers to significantly reduce their acquisition and operational cost of storage. All application data is reduced – not just secondary applications and not in a post-process manner.