EMC Isilon unveils Hadoop scale-out NAS

published 1 February 2012

EMC has launched its latest Isilon Network Attached Storage (NAS) offering, bringing in support for the popular open source analytics platform Hadoop.

By integrating the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), EMC claims users can take advantage of the benefits of Big Data analytics without having to deal with multiple vendors.

EMC claims to be the "first and only" scale-out NAS offering this integration, which will also provide the security, data movement and scalable storage features of a traditional NAS in one box.

As well as HDFS, EMC has included its own open source analytics system Greenplum HD, showing its continued enthusiasm for the open software community.

"The integrated Isilon solution enables customers to plug Hadoop-derived insight directly into a structured data analytics workflow without moving the data," said Luke Lonergan, CTO of EMC-owned Greenplum.

"This improves collaboration and speeds data analytics for our customers, enabling them to uncover new insights quickly and efficiently to maintain their competitive edge."

Apache's Hadoop project has been active for six years, but only reached version 1.0 - meaning it is recognised for enterprise use - at the end of 2011. Although many companies had already begun integrating the system, January saw a plethora of launches from high profile companies putting their money on the open source solution - Oracle and RainStor to name just two.

"Hadoop will be a game-changer in unstructured data analytics once enterprise customers are convinced that adoption can simplify their infrastructure and architecture without compromising data security or management capabilities," said Sam Grocott, vice president of marketing at EMC Isilon.

"We've taken the guesswork out of Hadoop deployment by bringing together the strengths of Isilon's enterprise scale-out NAS storage systems with the Hadoop ecosystem."

EMC first made its intentions for Hadoop clear back in May at its annual EMC World conference in Las Vegas. It announced new products integrating Hadoop and Greenplum - which it acquired in July 2010 - promising to bring the best analytics to enterprises for the deluge of data' companies are facing.

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.