A Fresh Approach to Real-World Proven, No-Compromise Storage
Nimble solutions are built to eliminate the compromise among performance, capacity, ease of use, and price. Nimble’s 
patented Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout (CASL™) is the first storage architecture designed from the ground up to seamlessly integrate SSDs with high-capacity disks, delivering affordable performance, integrated backup and disaster recovery, and pain-free operations.
Nimble CS-Series Features and Benefits
Based on Nimble’s breakthrough CASL™ architecture, CS-Series arrays give enterprises the functionality, performance, and capacity of three primary storage and one backup devices in a single solution.
The Nimble CS-Series delivers the following benefits:
- Flash-Accelerated Primary Storage Performance
Intelligent flash memory management and application-optimized performance profiles significantly accelerate I/O and reduce latency, making Nimble CS-Series arrays ideal for demanding primary storage applications such as Microsoft Exchange, business-critical databases, and Microsoft SharePoint.
- Instant Backups and Restores
High-density drives and 20x capacity optimization enable cost-effective retention of up to 90 days of backups on a single array. There’s no need to move data to or from tape or other backup media, so backups and restores can be performed in seconds.
- Application-Integrated Data Protection
Nimble Protection Manager (NPM) manages application-consistent backups for all application data residing on Nimble arrays, plus VM system-consistent backups and replicas for virtualized environments. With NPM, data can be instantly restored from any available backup, accelerating and simplifying application recovery.
- Fast Offsite Disaster Recovery
Nimble makes disaster recovery fast and cost-effective for every enterprise. Nimble’s DR solution is enabled by highly WAN-efficient replication to an offsite Nimble array, making it up to 20x faster than typical SAN replication.
- Dramatically Simplified Management
Designed for the IT generalist, an intuitive UI eliminates the complexity of managing separate storage, backup, and disaster recovery devices. Using predefined application and data protection policies, new volumes can be created and protected in just three simple steps.
- Unparalleled Reliability
Nimble Storage arrays are designed from the ground up to deliver the reliability and high availability that today’s business-critical applications demand. All Nimble arrays feature fully redundant hardware components, plus high-availability software and support features such as comprehensive checksums, proactive data scrubbing, autosupport (email home), and hardware monitoring.
- Lower Capex
By eliminating high-RPM drives and separate disk-based backup devices, Nimble Storage slashes infrastructure costs, energy consumption, and rack space requirements. Enterprises can reduce capex versus the cost of multiple-component solutions from existing storage vendors.
Introducing CASL™ Architecture
CS-Series iSCSI arrays are built on Nimble’s breakthrough Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout (CASL™) architecture. Here’s how CASL works:
- Inline Compression: Unlike existing architectures that store data as fixed-size blocks, Nimble CASL stores data as variable-size blocks, enabling real-time 2-4x data compression with no added latency.
- Optimized Data Layout: A copy of active “hot” data is held in flash memory, enabling fast reads, while all data is stored in cost-effective, high-capacity disk. Data is laid out sequentially, enabling fast writes to flash and disk.
- Intelligent Index: CASL’s intelligent index automatically tracks hot data blocks and instantly responds to workload changes.
- Instant, Integrated Backups: 60-90 days of compressed, incremental, snapshots are captured on high-capacity disk at pre-configured intervals. The snapshots are highly space efficient, and have zero performance impact on application performance, allowing frequent recovery points.
- Efficient Offsite Replication: Compressed block level changes are copied to a remote Nimble array for cost-effective disaster recovery.
Incremental Changes vs. Technology Breakthrough
Technology innovation often follows a predictable path: radical changes, followed by incremental improvements, then years of use until the new technology becomes “legacy” and is finally replaced by the next major change. The key for customers to stay on top of technology developments is to carefully evaluate new technologies and bring them in-house at the right time.
At the same time, incumbent vendors struggle to keep pace with changing technology while getting the maximum life and revenue out of their existing product investments. So they bolt new functionality onto their existing architectures and declare themselves “cutting edge.” But the foundation becomes increasingly shaky, and by the third or fourth add-on their technology has become cumbersome and inefficient.
History shows that true innovation rarely comes from established players. It is more likely to be introduced by newer 
players in the market who are not burdened by existing product investments or driven by the needs of their largest customers. New companies can take a fresh, forward-thinking approach to the market’s needs and emerging technologies. Nimble Storage has taken this approach.
Nimble Storage was founded by a team of industry veterans who developed groundbreaking primary storage and deduplication architectures at several market-leading storage companies. Their experience has given Nimble a unique perspective to solving the industry’s most pressing storage issues: reining in storage complexity, reducing costs, and implementing affordable backup and recovery.
The Nimble approach is based on the concept of converged storage, backup, and disaster recovery. It replaces an enterprise’s expensive high-RPM drives with a hybrid architecture that combines high-performance flash memory with low-cost, high-density SATA drives. And by deploying a second Nimble array in an off-site location, enterprises of any size can now obtain a complete, cost-effective data protection solution incorporating WAN-efficient primary-to-primary replication.
Before developing its new architecture, the Nimble team engaged with over a hundred enterprises – building a deep understanding of their key data storage and backup challenges. They asked IT managers what their “ideal” storage environment would look like. Invariably, the ideal solution was far less complex, much more powerful, and available for a fraction of the cost of today’s solutions.
Thanks to Nimble’s entirely new approach of cost-effective, converged data storage and reliable disaster recovery, the IT manager’s ideal has now become a reality.