Smooth Upgradability

Hardware upgrading in Nextra is seamless, effortless, and non-disruptive, whether the task at hand involves scaling the system or phasing out old components. This capability gives Nextra users the opportunity to capitalize on the market's latest technologies.

• Perfect load balancing between new and old hardware. When new capacity is added, the Nextra system automatically load-balances all current data on old and new hardware by migrating part of the data to the new hardware. This upgrading process is smooth, with no management effort, and fully transparent to hosts and administrators. Nextra's unique distribution algorithm ensures that only the minimal amount of data is migrated, minimizing performance overhead.
• Modular approach with single architecture. Nextra's single architecture approach enables flexible, cost-effective scaling on an as-needed basis. IT teams can add disk capacity, external bandwidth, and cache and processing power, according to their needs. None of these options is limited by any initial decision taken at Day One. The smallest system can always be upgraded to the largest system with respect to capacity, bandwidth, or performance.
• Exploitation of state-of-the-art technology. Nextra's modular approach enables the upgrading of components to the most up-to-date technologies, allowing the system to stay current and the enterprise to benefit from the best the market has to offer at any point in time. By incorporating the latest disks and processors, the system offers users the greatest densities and power savings.
• Easily remove out-dated hardware. Nextra transparently handles phase-out of old hardware, automatically moving data to the new hardware. All hardware upgrade activities can be performed without interrupting production, with the process fully transparent to hosts and administrators. This capability provides a simple and hassle-free way of getting rid of outdated, power-expending and space-consuming hardware.

Smooth sailing! The ancient Greek paradox, "Ship of Theseus," asks if a ship whose planks are replaced one by one stays the same ship or becomes another. Applying the same line of thought to Nextra, we can replace all Nextra's components one by one, and the system will still be considered the original system from the point of view of the hosts and administrators.