InfoStor articles from April 2009

InfoStor archives from April 2009

EMC adds de-dupe, SSDs to NAS.(EMC Celerra network attached storage)
April 1, 2009... EMC has overhauled its family of Celerra NAS products to include four new systems that are based on the Clariion CX4 architecture, and support file system de-duplication, file-level retention and compliance capabilities, and solid-state disk...

WAFS and WAN optimization/acceleration.(TECHNOLOGY UPDATE)(wide area file services and wide area network)
April 1, 2009... The tumultuous economy is not slowing the growth of wide area file services (WAFS) and wide area network (WAN) optimization technologies, as vendors continue to flesh out management features and hope bandwidth consolidation efforts lead to more...

Check out the new infostor.com.(ONLINE: EXCLUSIVE CONTENT AT INFOSTOR.COM)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... We recently launched a new and, yes, much improved Web site. In addition to an enhanced graphical look and feel, the site includes a number of elements that will make it easier for our visitors to use the site as their primary source for...

FcoE: the great convergence, or not?(Fibre Channel over Ethernet)(Editorial)
April 1, 2009... The controversy over the emerging Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) standard is no longer one of FCoE vs. MY (as it was about a year ago); it's now FCoE vs. the status quo. In other words, stick with two separate networks (Ethernet and Fibre...

AMD, Seagate.(Business BRIEFS)
April 1, 2009... Teaming up with AMD, Seagate demonstrated 6Gbps SATA disk drives at the Everything Channel Xchange Conference in New Orleans. Official introduction of the 6Gbps SATA drives is expected late this year.

Fusion-io has entered into an OEM agreement with HP for the StorageWorks IO Accelerator, a NAND flash-based storage adapter based on Fusion ioMemory technology.(Business BRIEFS)
April 1, 2009... Fusion-io has entered into an OEM agreement with HP for the StorageWorks IO Accelerator, a NAND flash-based storage adapter based on Fusion ioMemory technology. Fusion-io claims that the accelerator card provides more than 100,000 IOPS, 800MBps...

Isilon Systems and Ocarina Networks, which provide content-aware compression and de-duplication for primary storage, have announced a near-line archiving system combining Isilon's 36NL and Ocarina's ECOsystem storage optimization software.(Business BRIEFS)
April 1, 2009... Isilon Systems and Ocarina Networks, which provide content-aware compression and de-duplication for primary storage, have announced a near-line archiving system combining Isilon's 36NL and Ocarina's ECOsystem storage optimization software. The...

FalconStor Software is now offering a backup enhancement option for VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) that optimizes backup processes by separating them from the production environment.(Business BRIEFS)
April 1, 2009... FalconStor Software is now offering a backup enhancement option for VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) that optimizes backup processes by separating them from the production environment. The FalconStor HyperTrac Backup Accelerator for VCB...

Seanodes.(Business BRIEFS)
April 1, 2009... Seanodes has released a beta version of its Exanodes Shared Internal Storage software for Microsoft Windows Server 2008, which lets users repurpose commoditized or existing hardware as an iSCSI SAN.

AutoVirt.(Business BRIEFS)
April 1, 2009... Windows data migration software vendor AutoVirt is offering a free tool to help users discover underutilized Windows file server and NAS resources in physical, virtualized, and mixed environments. The new AutoMap site survey tool, which is...

CNAs support 10GbE, iSCI, FcoE.(NEWS analysis + trends)
April 1, 2009... Emulex has made a number of product announcements focused on data center consolidation, including converged network adapter (CNA) cards that support IOGbps Ethernet (IOGbE) and iSCSI, as well as Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). The company...

Is tape dead yet? Q&A with Curtis Breville, EMA.(NEWS analysis + trends)
April 1, 2009... Q: My company has been backing up to tape for more than 20 years. We have our problems now and then, but the total cost of the backup solution is so much less than the initial cost for a [disk-based backup] replacement system. I have higher-ups...

Pillar adds SSDs to disk arrays.(NEWS analysis + trends)
April 1, 2009... Pillar Data Systems has announced a new set of solid-state disk (SSD) "Bricks" (Pillar's nomenclature for drive enclosures) for its Axiom arrays. They include 12 64GB Intel X25-E Extreme SATA SSDs for 768GB of raw capacity, with one drive...

Who are the (perceived) market leaders?(NEWS analysis + trends)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... [GRAPHIC OMITTED] The data in these charts is compiled from the IT Brand Pulse March 2009 Leader Surveys. As part of each survey, end users were asked which vendor they perceive as the market leader. The IT Brand Pulse Leader reports also...

'Do more for less' with 6Gb/s SAS: in addition to a 2x speed improvement 6Gb/s SAS has features such as zoning, self-discovering expanders, table-to-table routing, longer cable lengths, multiplexing, and improved diagnosis.(Special REPORT)(Serial Attached Small Computer System Interface)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] You're an IT manager and you've just received the disheartening news that your IT budge been slashed; however, you've also been given the somewhat contradictory mandate to increase the performance and value of the...

The great convergence: FCoE and Enhanced Ethernet: ratification of the standard is expected this year, with mainstream adoption beginning next year. Here's why Fibre Channel over Ethernet makes sense for enterprise data centers.
April 1, 2009... The major driver for Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is to marry the massive economics of Ethernet to huge corporate investments in Fibre Channel. The advantages of unification are significant in the data center--reducing equipment,...

SSDs vs. HDDs: ten considerations: choosing the ideal storage infrastructure will depend on your specific needs. How long you plan to store your data, and how fast you need to do it, are among key factors in determining whether a solid-state disk drive could be your solution.
April 1, 2009... Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, solid-state disk (SSD) drives have re-appeared 20 years after their initial rise and fall. And if enthusiasm in the storage community is any indicator, it seems that SSDs are here to stay this time. For...

Technology options for 'green' storage: going green requires balancing performance, availability, capacity, and energy efficiency.
April 1, 2009... There are many approaches to addressing power, cooling, floor space (or footprint), and environmental (PCFE) aka "green" issues pertaining to data storage. A key consideration for enabling a green and virtual data center storage environment is...

Isilon expands NAS lineup.(NEW PRODUCTS)(network attached storage)
April 1, 2009... Isilon Systems has added to its product line with the availability of three new NAS platforms for transactional applications, nearline storage, and traditional scale-out implementations. The company is also integrating compression and...

Nexsan enters iSCSI fray.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2009... Nexsan entered the iSCSI market last month with a series of SAN systems that also support Fibre Channel and NAS. The company's iSeries can be connected to any of Nexsan's disk subsystems, including the SATABoy, SATABeast, SASBoy and SASBeast....

Texas Memory ships PCIe SSD.(NEW PRODUCTS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Texas Memory Systems' Ramsan-20 solid-state disk (SSD) drive packs 450GB of flash memory on a PCIe card. The card can be plugged into a server's PCI slot (minimizing latency between the host CPU and storage) or could be integrated into a RAID...

Data Domain boosts performance.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2009... The Data Domain operating system (DD OS) 4.6 release increases the performance across the company's line of de-duplicating disk-based backup systems by as much as 100%. The software uses a proprietary technology called Stream Informed...

VI ships SAN I/O software for VMware.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2009... SAN optimization vendor and Finisar spin-off Virtual Instruments' VirtualWisdom software peers into SAN I/O in VMware environments to help administrators troubleshoot the links between virtual machines (VMs) and storage. The software...

LSI adapters support SSDs.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2009... The 3.6 release of LSI's MegaRAID management software, which works with the company's MegaRAID SAS 87XX and 88XX adapters, supports solid-state disk (SSD) drives. A feature dubbed SSD Guard increases reliability and adds data protection...