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Isilon Steps on the Gas: Page 4 of 5

Like the previous IQ family of hardware, the X-Series can be deployed in a 1.6-Pbyte, 96-node cluster, although Isilon has ramped up its partner activity around the new boxes. In addition to the deal with ColdWatt, the X-Series has been qualified to work with Cisco's Wide Area Application Services (WAAS), and Isilon also announced a technology partnership with Riverbed today.

The X-Series has also been certified to work with VMware's ESX Server 3.0, something that could be key in luring enterprises onto the platform. "I like to see that -- it's a good way for companies like Isilon to get out of their Web 2.0 niche," says IDC's Nisbet. "Mainstream organizations are looking to virtualize their environments, and they need to make sure that the storage doesn't become the limiting factor."

Isilon's Goodwin tells Byte and Switch that more than 60 customers have already purchased X-Series hardware, although only a handful of these have been made public. Early adopters include Isilon's key customer Kodak, the Austin Radiological Association, the PetroChina Company, and Calgary, Alberta-based oil exploration company Arcis.

The X-Series hardware is available now, priced from $2,500 per Tbyte for the highest capacity successor to the IQ 12000, and $12,000 per Tbyte for the highest performance successor to the low-end IQ 1920. This pricing represents no change compared to Isilon's IQ hardware, according to Goodwin.

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