InfoStor articles from April 2006

InfoStor archives from April 2006

Virtualization slowly makes inroads.(CASE STUDIES)
April 1, 2006... Despite all the hype and debate, storage virtualization is not a priority for more than half of the end users recently surveyed by ThelnfoPro research firm. According to the survey, 51% of the Fortune 1000 users interviewed do not have plans to...

Brocade branches out: buys NuView; adds 4Gbps FC switches.(Brocade Communication Systems Inc.,)
April 1, 2006... Switch-and-director specialist Brocade does not want to be known as just a switch-and-director specialist anymore. In an effort to morph from a Fibre Channel switch vendor into an overall data management provider, Brocade recently acquired...

CommVault Systems.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
April 1, 2006... CommVault Systems has filed a registration statement for the proposed initial public offering of its common stock with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

EMC announced availability of the Connectrix ED-10000M.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
April 1, 2006... EMC announced availability of the Connectrix ED-10000M backbone director, an OEM version of McData's Intrepid 10000 backbone director.

Asigra has partnered with ONStor to reduce the costs and complexities of protecting data.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
April 1, 2006... Asigra has partnered with ONStor to reduce the costs and complexities of protecting data across remote locations through a combination of Asigra's Televauking 6.0 software and ONStor's Bobcat Series Enterprise NAS gateways.

NSI Software will now be doing business as Double-Take Software.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
April 1, 2006... NSI Software will now be doing business as Double-Take Software. The company also recently moved its headquarters to Southborough, MA.

Acronis has signed an OEM agreement with SonicWALL to provide Acronis True Image with SonicWALL's recently announced CDP products.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
April 1, 2006... Acronis has signed an OEM agreement with SonicWALL to provide Acronis True Image with SonicWALL's recently announced CDP products. Acronis True Image will be a primary component of SonicWALUs bare-metal recovery/local archiving solution for...

CA is integrating its Message Manager e-mail archive and management software (formerly Assentor Enterprise) with Oracle's Collaboration Suite 10g collaborative environment.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
April 1, 2006... CA is integrating its Message Manager e-mail archive and management software (formerly Assentor Enterprise) with Oracle's Collaboration Suite 10g collaborative environment. The integration enables customers to retain and manage e-mail messages...

Atempo has acquired Storactive, a provider of CDP software.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
April 1, 2006... Atempo has acquired Storactive, a provider of CDP software.

DataCore Software has entered into a partnership with AccessFlow, a computer systems consultant and reseller that designs and deploys virtual infrastructure solutions.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
April 1, 2006... DataCore Software has entered into a partnership with AccessFlow, a computer systems consultant and reseller that designs and deploys virtual infrastructure solutions. AccessFlow's mission is to combine server virtualization (VMware), storage...

Copan Systems.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
April 1, 2006... Copan Systems has received $17.5 million in new investment capital. Since its inception, Copan has raised about $56.5 million.

Brocade Communications Systems.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
April 1, 2006... Brocade Communications Systems will unify its existing channel programs, including the Elite Partner Program and Tapestry Partner Programs, into the Brocade Alliance Partner Network.

Xiotech has certified VMware ESX Server for use with its Magnitude 3D family of network storage systems.(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Xiotech has certified VMware ESX Server for use with its Magnitude 3D family of network storage systems. The certification will provide companies with the ability to take advantage of VMware ESX Server's virtual software infrastructure on...

Correction.(Correction notice)
April 1, 2006... In an article in the March issue (see "Storage stokes the creative process," p. 28), it was incorrectly stated that Maximum Throughput's Max-T Sledgehammer NAS system was configured with SATA drives. The Max-T is configured with Fibre Channel...

IBM launches 4Gbps FC arrays.(NEWS ANALYSIS + TRENDS)
April 1, 2006... IBM continued on its quest to refit its entire storage subsystem line with 4Gbps Fibre Channel technology this month by upgrading its midrange disk systems and launching new offerings for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). IBM launched...

Microsoft acquires iSCSI software.(NEWS ANALYSIS + TRENDS)
April 1, 2006... Microsoft last month acquired iSCSI target software from startup String Bean Software and plans to offer the technology as an add-on to the Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 platform. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. String...

EMC adds eDiscovery services.(EMC Corp. launched information and content management software)
April 1, 2006... EMC recently unveiled its eDiscovery solution, which combines services with EMC software and hardware to collect and hold information relative to litigation, eDiscovery also applies information lifecycle management (ILM) strategies to organize...

McData consolidates remote office data.
April 1, 2006... McData recently announced a new set of partnerships, products, and services as part of a strategy to give large enterprises a better handle on centrally managing corporate data in remote office locations. McData's Remote Office...

Oh, what a tangled web they weave.(Hewlett-Packard Co. acquisition of OuterBay Technologies)
April 1, 2006... Hewlett-Packard's acquisition of OuterBay, a database archiving software vendor, comes as yet another example of two accelerating trends: IT-vendor portfolio conglomeration and portfolio entanglement. IT giants such as EMC, HP, IBM, and Sun...

IBM adds software for SMBs.(small to medium-sized businesses)(International Business Machines Corp.)
April 1, 2006... IBM has begun shipments of the IBM Tivoli Express Portfolio, a set of software products designed to enable small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to manage their IT infrastructure with integrated features usually found in more expensive...

Onaro widens its view into SANs.(SANscreen 3.0)
April 1, 2006... Onaro recently beefed up its predictive change management and monitoring software for SANs with the addition of replication and performance monitoring tools. The company also launched a new version of its flagship SANscreen product with support...

Brocade adds 4Gbps switches: plus iSCSI gateway.(Brocade Communication Systems Inc.)
April 1, 2006... Brocade recently began shipping a range of new storage networking products that run the gamut of protocols and port counts--from a 64-port 4Gbps SAN switch, to a Fibre Channel over Internet Protocol (FCIP) blade, to an iSCSI gateway. ...

Focus on: midrange tape trends: LTO has captured the lion's share of the midrange tape market, but users don't buy based on market share.(linear tape-open)
April 1, 2006... Although tape is increasingly sharing the back up burden with disk, tape is still the dominant media for backup-and-recovery operations as well as archive operations. But tape drive/ library/media manufacturers are aware that they have to stay...

Making sense of CDP: does CDP stand for continuous data protection, or confusion delays proliferation?(SPECIAL REPORT)(continuous data protection)
April 1, 2006... The core premise behind continuous data protection (CDP) is relatively simple: Users run a CDP solution non-disruptively in the background and move onto other IT tasks, all while the solution captures and records each block-level or file-level...

The changing face of data protection: the emphasis is shifting from backup to recovery, and technologies such as CDP can help users meet RTO/RPO goals.
April 1, 2006... The data-protection market is finally in a state of transition. Although end users are still looking for ways to improve backup performance, they are focusing increasingly on recovery. Faced with growing data volumes, a seemingly endless...

Tiered storage is only one part of ILM: information lifecycle management (ILM) requires tools for tasks such as information classification, data classification, and data movement in conjunction with a tiered storage architecture.(SNIA on STORAGE)
April 1, 2006... TIERED STORAGE IS AN IMPORTANT strategy for IT services. Yet among the many discussions of the value of tiered storage from a business perspective or its usefulness for IT in reducing costs, some vendors insist on selling tiered storage as...

SNIA upcoming events.(Storage Networking Industry Association)(Brief article)(Calendar)
April 1, 2006... May 7-10 IT Channel Vision--Orlando, FL A Gartner event and supported by the SNIA, this three-day conference is designed to build business partnerships and collaboration between technology vendors and today's leading system builders....

Do you need a 4Gbps FC SAN? PCI-X and PCI Express versions of QLogic's 4Gbps SANblade HBAs yield impressive performance results.(LAB REVIEW)
April 1, 2006... FIBRE CHANNEL SANS HAVE evolved from 1Gbps to 2Gbps and now, to 4Gbps. Although higher performance is always good--particularly when it doesn't come with a price premium, as is the case with Fibre Channel--the relatively rapid evolution in...

Tape virtualization has many faces: understanding the different choices you have is key to determining which technology best fits your needs, and in what situations.(ANALYST VIEW)
April 1, 2006... AFTER RECEDING FOR A FEW YEARS, virtualization is back in vogue in the IT industry. all kinds of virtualization--server, disk, and tape--are becoming more popular. The concept sounds simple: Virtualization is the logical abstraction of physical...

What's hot? D2D, data reduction, data classification: disk-to-disk (D2D) backup and recovery, data reduction, and ILM-based data classification are relatively new technologies that will eventually become mainstream.(ANALYST VIEW)
April 1, 2006... DATA PROTECTION, BUSINESS continuance, compliance, and disaster-recovery requirements all will intensify this year, and the mountains of data involved will continue to grow. The good news is that there are a variety of products already on the...

Adaptec adds SAS to NAS.(Network attached storage, Serial ATA )
April 1, 2006... Targeting small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), Adaptec recently expanded its SnapServer NAS appliance line with the 500 series. The company also added StorAssure Personal Edition, which is "continuous protection" software for client file...

Isilon boosts performance, capacity.(Isilon Systems launches IQ Accelerator and EX6000 )
April 1, 2006... Isilon Systems recently launched two new products--the IQ Accelerator and EX6000--designed to enhance storage cluster performance and capacity, respectively. The company also released a version upgrade of its OneFS file-system software, which...

Start-up takes on NetApp, EMC.(agami Systems extending its network attached storage products)(Network Appliance )
April 1, 2006... Start-up agami Systems recently extended its line of integrated NAS products with the AIS6000 series, which doubles the capacity (up to 19.2TB with 48 drives) and performance (up to 1GBps read throughput) of the AIS3000 series released last...

Sanbolic upgrades file system.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2006... Sanbolic has released Melio File System (FS) version 2.0 and LaScala volume manager version 2.0. Melio FS 2.0 is a symmetrical 64-bit clustered file system designed for high-availability and clustered computing environments. Enhancements...

Unitrends offers granular recovery.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2006... Unitrends has added a Continuous Exchange Protection (CEP) feature to its Rapid Recovery System, enabling administrators to recover e-mail from the server level down to individual messages. CEP allows backup from an Exchange server to...

Iomega adds autoloader.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2006... Iomega's REV Loader 280 is an autoloader based on the company's 35GB removable hard drives. The autoloader includes up to eight REV 35 drives for a total capacity of 280GB (560GB compressed) in a 7x5-inch form factor. The device connects to...

NEC array supports 4Gb FC.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2006... NEC Solutions' entry-level $1500 and midrange $2500 disk arrays support 4Gbps Fibre Channel host connections and a mix of Fibre Channel and Serial ATA (SATA) disk drives for in-the-box tiered storage. RAID-6 is included for protecting SATA...

Calendar.(Brief article)(Calendar)
April 1, 2006... May 2-3 Network Storage Cenference--Las Vegas, NV The conference is dedicated to analyzing new architectural processes in network storage. Sessions focus on integrating systems networks, and storage; provisioning and managing storage;...

Start-up targets OEMs, integrators.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2006... MPSTOR this month began shipping disk enclosures designed for OEMs and systems/storage integrators. The 4U iBOD tiered-storage series is available in SAS-SATA or FC-FATA versions. Both subsystems support up to 48 drives. The SAS-SATA...

iStor unveils next-gen iSCSI controller.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2006... At the CeBIT show last month, iStor Networks unveiled the next generation of its GigaStorATX iSCSI storage controllers, which conform to the ATX form factor. Features include a storage virtualization firmware stack, SMI-S-compliant management...