SUNNYVALE, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 11/09/12 -- DataDirect Networks™ (DDN), the leader in massively scalable storage, today announced the availability of its next-generation scale-out storage platform: The SFA7700 hybrid Flash storage appliance with SFX™ acceleration. This innovative modular, scale-out appliance brings an industry-leading level of performance to data-intensive applications such as computational simulation, government intelligence, media, web and Big Data analytics that require multi-dimensional storage performance and smart storage tiering combined with leading data center density for both structured and unstructured data.

The SFA7700 is a fully redundant hybrid storage platform engineered for performance and capacity optimization of block- and file-based applications. The base system supports 60 Flash and/or spinning disk drives in only 4U of datacenter rack space, and is expandable to support up to 396 disks in just 20U of rack space. Leveraging award-winning SFA OS real-time, highly parallel storage operating systems, the DDN SFA7700 is precision-engineered to deliver maximum storage performance extraction and is capable of achieving performance levels more than 700% greater than competing scale-out file storage platforms.

The SFA7700 is the first platform to feature DDN's new Storage Fusion Xcelerator™ Flash tiering technology, a suite of storage acceleration tools that combine spinning and solid state disk technology with application awareness to intelligently accelerate block- and file-based data access and delivery while also minimizing the total cost of storage acquisition. The SFA7700 is designed with a variety of DDN SFA software features that are engineered to minimize complexity and maximize efficiency of high-scale Big Data environments, including:

• New Storage Fusion Xcelerator (SFX) portfolio of Flash acceleration tools:
  • SFX Read: Read caching to accelerate frequently accessed data
  • SFX Write: Accelerate writes while cost-reducing SSD protection
  • SFX: Instant Commit: Automatic cache warming of recent writes
  • SFX Context Commit: Application-driven intelligent data caching
• DirectMon™: DDN's enterprise management and monitoring product suite, which provides one pane of glass for ease of management
• DirectProtect™: A self-healing engine and data integrity protection suite
• ReACT™: Real-time adaptive RAM cache management

With optional GRIDScaler™ and EXAScaler™ file storage technology from DDN, the SFA7700 is a modular scalable unit that cost-effectively scales file systems beyond 100GB/s while intelligently eliminating file storage hotspots with DDN's SFX Flash acceleration tools.

The DDN SFA7700 will be running live at SC12, the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis in Salt Lake City from November 12-15 at booth #1519.

The DDN SFA7700 will be available in early 2013 directly through DDN and via DDN's PartnerLink channel community. Please visit www.ddn.com/products/sfa7700 or contact your DDN sales rep for more information.

Supporting quotes:

"Our SFA7700 is in a class of its own as a Big Data building block," said Jeff Denworth, Vice President of Marketing, DDN. "It is the result of years of Big Data engineering and investment into resolving critical performance and efficiency challenges which continue to mount as data explodes across the enterprise. With an affordable entry point and the automated combination of spinning and solid state technology, the SFA7700 is the ideal Big Data platform for data-driven organizations that are faced with unpredictable scaling and performance requirements."

"DDN has extended its SFA technology to feature even greater levels of efficiency and modularity," said Henry Baltazar, Senior Analyst, 451 Research. "With appliance-level integration into DDN's file storage technology and new automation with DDN's cloud collaboration tools, the SFA7700 is an ideal foundation to DDN's Big Data portfolio and will enable organizations to ingest, process, store and distribute data with simplicity and scalability."

"Our partners require highly differentiated application-focused solutions to better serve the needs of their data-driven customers," said Bill Cox, Vice President of Worldwide Channel Sales, DDN. "With the release of the SFA7700, not only do our partners have the perfect opportunity to address a broader class of their customer's challenges, they also have the ability to provide solutions based on modularity and simplicity. We believe that the SFA7700 gives our Worldwide PartnerLink partners a substantial competitive advantage and a formidable opportunity to grow their businesses with DDN technology."

About DataDirect Networks
DataDirect Networks (DDN) is the world leader in massively scalable storage. We are the leading provider of data storage and processing solutions and professional services that enable content-rich and high growth IT environments to achieve the highest levels of systems scalability, efficiency and simplicity. DDN enables enterprises to extract value and deliver results from their information. Our customers include the world's leading online content and social networking providers, high performance cloud and grid computing, life sciences, media production organizations and security & intelligence organizations.

Deployed in thousands of mission critical environments worldwide, DDN's solutions have been designed, engineered and proven in the world's most scalable data centers to ensure competitive business advantage for today's information powered enterprise.

For more information, go to www.ddn.com or call 1-800-837-2298.

DDN, DirectMon, DirectProtect, EXAScaler, GRIDscaler, ReACT, SFA, Storage Fusion Xcelerator, WOS, are trademarks owned by DataDirect Networks. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.