Western Digital Expands ActiveScale™ Capabilities, Delivering Unmatched Performance and Economics for Managing Exabyte-Scale Data Growth

Enhanced ActiveScale OS 5.5 Cloud Object Storage System Streamlines Data Workflows, Improves Distributed Storage Performance, and Increases Density to Better Manage and Protect Digital Assets

News Highlights:

• Award-winning ActiveScale delivers best-in-class object storage performance, massive scalability and extreme data durability for mixed file and object workloads, including analytics and other business-critical secondary storage applications.

• New features include Data Pipeline Service with real-time object notifications for streamlined workflows; and Asynchronous Geo-Spread for multi-site DR without compromising performance.
• A 16 percent increase in density extends the ActiveScale system's leading value proposition for scaling IT infrastructure to meet business demands.
• Join Western Digital's webinar on July 30, 2019 at 10 am PT and hear industry experts talk about building a comprehensive data strategy. A recording will be available.

Western Digital WDC today announced enhancements to its ActiveScale storage system portfolio, making it one of the highest performing and most cost-effective object storage platforms for storing, managing and extracting value from the ever-expanding universe of unstructured data. With the introduction of OS 5.5, ActiveScale becomes an even more integral part of an IT infrastructure by expanding its comprehensive set of data management capabilities for streamlining workflows and reducing latency barriers for multi-site data distribution.

More than ever, enterprises are realizing that to extract timely insights from a multitude of unstructured data sources requires the right infrastructure that delivers both sustained performance and predictable costs at scale. Yet research continues to show that most data goes unstored or unanalyzed, data siloes persist, governance remains inadequate, and a disproportionate amount of time is spent simply discovering and preparing data. To solve these challenges, IT leaders are increasingly turning to ActiveScale, a cloud-scale object storage solution that provides extreme data durability, scalability and operational simplicity with unmatched storage economics.

Industry-Leading Scale-Out Performance

As the leader in its class for HDD-based object storage, ActiveScale leverages its scale-out architecture to provide near-linear performance growth for data-intensive applications such as AI, machine learning and HPC workloads. With its industry-leading performance, the ActiveScale X100, coupled with OS 5.5, is projected to deliver data throughput of up to 75GB/second in scale out configurations, making it the ideal solution for large-scale data workflows.

Data Pipeline Service

The ActiveScale Data Pipeline Service offers a versatile way to stitch together distributed web-scale applications to streamline data processing. With real-time object notifications from ActiveScale, business applications can optimize task initiation for improved productivity and faster time to value. This new notification feature simplifies workflow processing for a variety of use cases, including real-time analytics, IoT, mobile applications, media and entertainment, and business processes.

Asynchronous Geo-Spread

ActiveScale Geo-Spreading is an advanced data protection scheme that delivers outstanding system availability by spreading data across geographically dispersed availability zones. The new OS 5.5 adds asynchronous mode support, which enables low-latency data ingest for IoT applications without compromising system availability. Customers can now choose between synchronous or asynchronous geo resiliency with Geo-Spread to meet their unique needs.

Improved Storage Density and Economics

Well known for its unmatched TCO at exabyte-scale, ActiveScale enables customers to further reduce CAPEX and overall hardware footprint with improved storage economics. With the integration of new 14TB Ultrastar^® data center-class drives, customers can take advantage of the 16 percent increase in storage density and improved cost/capacity, without increasing power and cooling costs.

"ActiveScale 5.5 further extends the unique value that only Western Digital can deliver in terms of performance, efficiency, scalability and superior economics for those putting data at the center of their business," said Phil Bullinger, senior vice president and general manager of Western Digital's Data Center Systems business unit. "We're extremely proud of the innovation that has gone into developing solutions that enable our customers to make data infrastructure synonymous with a successful data business strategy. The world of big data may be complex, but by listening to customers, we're more confident than ever that our ActiveScale system meets the needs of even the most demanding data-centric environments."

In addition to the ActiveScale cloud object storage system, Western Digital's full data center portfolio includes the IntelliFlash™ family of NVMe™-based all flash and hybrid flash arrays; OpenFlex™ NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF™) open composable infrastructure; Ultrastar server and storage platforms; Ultrastar memory extension drive; and its family of Ultrastar data center-class HDDs and SSDs.

Become an Enterprise Channel Partner

Western Digital also recently launched its enhanced Enterprise Partner Program (EPP) with streamlined benefits, discounts and programs for its IntelliFlash, ActiveScale and Ultrastar Platform brands. Solution and cloud providers are encouraged to apply for the award-winning Western Digital Enterprise Partner Program to access the comprehensive selection of go-to-market resources and sales incentives. With Western Digital's broad data center portfolio, partners can easily create solutions and services to solve specific customer challenges while helping grow their business and maximize profitability.

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Additional Resources:

• Blog: The Key to Your Data's Golden Copy
• Video: Developing a Successful Data Strategy, featuring Mark Peters, principal analyst at ESG Global, and Thomas Davenport, distinguished professor of IT and Management at Babson College.

About Western Digital

Western Digital creates environments for data to thrive. The company is driving the innovation needed to help customers capture, preserve, access and transform an ever-increasing diversity of data. Everywhere data lives, from advanced data centers to mobile sensors to personal devices, our industry-leading solutions deliver the possibilities of data. Western Digital data-centric solutions are comprised of the Western Digital, G-Technology™, SanDisk®, and WD® brands.

As used for storage capacity, one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment. Product specifications subject to change without notice. Not all products are available in all regions of the world.

©2019 Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Western Digital, the Western Digital logo, G-Technology, SanDisk, WD, ActiveScale, IntelliFlash, OpenFlex, and Ultrastar are registered trademarks or trademarks of Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates in the US and/or other countries. The NVMe and NVMe-oF word marks are trademarks of NVM Express, Inc.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the capabilities, features and performance of the company's data technologies, devices, platforms and systems. There are a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate including, among others: volatility in global economic conditions; business conditions and growth in the storage ecosystem; impact of competitive products and pricing; market acceptance and cost of commodity materials and specialized product components; actions by competitors; unexpected advances in competing technologies; our development and introduction of products based on new technologies and expansion into new data storage markets; risks associated with acquisitions, mergers and joint ventures; difficulties or delays in manufacturing; and other risks and uncertainties listed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recently filed periodic report to which your attention is directed. The company undertakes no obligation to update the information in this release in the event facts or circumstances change after the date of this release.

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