Pillar Data Systems Introduces New Product and Technology Advancements at Inaugural Customer and Partner Summit

New SSD Options and Array-based Replication; Advances in Industry-leading Quality of Service

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – March 15, 2010 – Pillar Data Systems has presented new product and technology advancements to attendees of its first annual Pillar Customer and Partner Summit. Pillar hosted its community members at The Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale for a series of product, technology and service demonstrations. The Pillar Summit also provided an opportunity for customers and partners to share experiences and best practices and to get a window into plans for future Pillar Data Systems innovations.

“We’re exceptionally proud to have such a bright and loyal community that has come together for this first-time Summit,” said Mike Workman, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Pillar Data Systems. “I’m personally thrilled to have shared Pillar’s vision for the future of storage and to have introduced the next generation of our award-winning technologies.”

Pillar introduced the following technology advancements:

• Unified Native AxiomONE Replication: Array-based data protection for both SAN and NAS for the Pillar Axiom product platform. Pillar’s AxiomONE Replication extends its current replication offerings with easy to use policy-based Application-Aware profiles to give more choice for data protection for customers of all sizes.
  
  
• Availability of High-capacity SSD Bricks: Pillar continues the expansion of SSD storage options in the Axiom capacity pool. Pillar now offers a 2.4 TB SSD Brick, delivering one of the broadest ranges of drive options in the industry for more sophisticated data tiering.
  
  
• AxiomONE Pre-emptive Copy: New adaptive learning RAS feature that senses “suspect” drives in the storage pool and copies data to a spare drive before calling for a replacement. The Pre-emptive Copy feature enhances Pillar’s industry-leading drive rebuild times by doing the bulk of the work before a failure occurs, using a simple copy instead of a rebuild of the drive contents.
  
  
• QoS within Storage Class: Each storage media type (FC, SSD, SATA) can now have all QoS priority bands operational within a respective class – delivering further flexibility of Pillar’s patented QoS. QoS adjusts priority, CPU, cache and network resources – all of which are extremely effective even with SSD in a storage pool. While statistical short stroking is one of the tools used to optimize SATA performance, it is only one tool used by the Axiom to extract every drop of performance from the capacity pool.
  
  
• Application-Aware QoS Migrations: By providing customers with options to migrate data between QoS levels based on administrator policies or built-in intelligent storage pool re-allocation, this feature significantly deceases storage management time and its inherent costs.
  
  
• Axiom Slammers with 8Gbps FC SAN and 10Gbps Ethernet NAS Connectivity: Slammers with this high-speed, front-end connectivity will allow customers to take advantage of new network technologies and improve the overall throughput of the infrastructure. Existing Axiom customers will be allowed to introduce Slammers to their platform seamlessly, without a forklift upgrade or additional software licenses.
  
  
• Axiom High-performance Storage Machine: A new Axiom configuration using 200GB SSD and 8Gbps FC SAN connectivity, capable of half a million IOPs for all application block IO – a true application accelerator, not just an SQL accelerator.

Mike Workman delivered the keynote address, where he outlined his vision for the future of Pillar Data Systems and detailed the company’s continued plans to drive innovation in the storage industry. Rick Villars, Vice President, Storage Systems & Executive Strategies at IDC, presented on storage industry trends and purchasing considerations. Pillar also held several technology demonstrations and provided product roadmap guidance during the event.

“Never before in the history of Pillar have we brought together such an esteemed collection of customers, partners and industry experts,” said Nancy Holleran, President and Chief Operating Officer. “We’re especially pleased that we were able to roll out so many exciting and new technologies that will further establish Pillar’s strong track record of innovating to achieve greater storage efficiency and commitment to world class customer service.”

About Pillar Data Systems

Founded in 2001, Pillar Data Systems develops Application-Aware Storage systems for midsize and enterprise organizations.  With the highest utilization rates in the storage industry, the Pillar Axiom solution is the most efficient storage system on the market today. The Pillar Axiom cuts administrative time and total cost of ownership by more than 50 percent as well as provides the only storage system that can differentiate services based on application priority. Designed from the ground up as the only true Application-Aware Storage system, the Pillar Axiom allows users to match multiple application characteristics to the appropriate service levels within a single storage platform. Pillar Data Systems is privately funded by Tako Ventures, LLC, the venture arm of Larry Ellison.

The company is headquartered at 2840 Junction Avenue, San Jose, California 95134. The company can be reached on the Web at http://www.pillardata.co.uk, by phone at +44 (0)20 31 788 794 or by email at infoUK@pillardata.com.

For further information, please contact:

Clare Shephard
Maillot Jaune Communications
clare.shephard@maillot-jaune.co.uk
+44 (0)1252 761446