InfoStor articles from December 2004

InfoStor archives from December 2004

VARs/integrators/users share D2D experiences.(News Analysis & Trends)(Value added resellers)(Disk-to-disk )
December 1, 2004... Disk-to-disk (D2D) or disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) backup architectures are rapidly gaining acceptance by IT organizations constrained by their reliance on tape-based backup and restore. To better understand real-world D2D issues, InfoStor...

NetApp moves toward storage grid; launches Data ONTAP 7G.(News Analysis + Trends)(Network Appliance Inc.)
December 1, 2004... Network Appliance last month announced the 7G version of its Data ONTAP operating system and, in doing so, marked a significant milestone in its pursuit of a storage grid architecture, according to analysts. Data ONTAP is the operating system...

Switches and directors: the year in review: what to look for in 2005.(News Analysis + Trends)
December 1, 2004... Users hungry for new products and more scalability for their storage-networking dollars found what they were looking for in 2004. Switch vendors spent the year broadening their portfolios, increasing scalability. lowering prices, and...

The role of the channel is rising.(Editorial)
December 1, 2004... ALTHOUGH IT VARIES depending on what type of storage product you're talking about, the majority of storage purchases go through the channel (mostly VARs and systems/storage integrators). And the role of resellers and integrators is expected to...

Quantum has agreed to purchase Certance LLC for $60 million.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Quantum has agreed to purchase Certance LLC for $60 million. The transaction is expected to close by year-end.

Eugenio Information Technologies will provide Sun Microsystems with new modular storage technology and will co-develop future Sun storage products.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Engenio Information Technologies will provide Sun Microsystems with new modular storage technology and will co-develop future Sun storage products. Separately, ApplQ and Engenio will co-develop and distribute SAN management solutions that...

Isilon Systems.(Business Briefs)(SmartPartner channel program with support of more than 20 resellers and distributors.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Isilon Systems launched a SmartPartner channel program with support of more than 20 resellers and distributors in North America and Asia. Partners include The Pinnacle Group, Tokyo Electron (TEL), Nth Generation, Ordigraphe, Seoul Electron, and...

GlassHouse Technologies.(Business Briefs)(contracts)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... GlassHouse Technologies has been awarded a five-year General Services Administration (GSA) schedule contract, which enables civilian, US defense, and other federal agencies to procure GlassHouse's storage, backup, and consulting services.

PolyServe.(Business Briefs)(Matrix Server software )(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... PolyServe announced the availability of PolyServe Matrix Server software as a complementary storage cluster offering to Hewlett-Packard's Unified Cluster Portfolio. Seagate Technology's Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives are being sampled by...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
December 1, 2004... In the October issue (see "Intelligence in the fabric: Myth or Reality?" p. 26), Cloverleaf was inadvertently omitted as a vendor of fabric-based intelligence systems, Cloverleaf offers a set of fabric-based services such as capacity and...

Recommended reading.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... It's rare that a full-length book comes out that deserves a place on storage professionals' bookshelves, but we highly recommend Greg Schulz' Resilient Storage Networks, published by the Digital Press division of Elsevier. Greg is an analyst...

Adoption of fabric-based intelligence stalled.(News Analysis + Trends)
December 1, 2004... Two recent surveys conducted by the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) consulting firm suggest that vendors, not users, are in control of the emerging fabric-based intelligence market. The ESG surveys revealed strong end-user interest in...

NeoPath joins NFM ranks.(News Analysis + Trends)(network file management)
December 1, 2004... The rapid proliferation of NAS devices over the last several years has led to management problems. For example, poor utilization and an inability to manage load balancing among devices have become common. "End users are beginning to find out...

Crosswalk software aimed at mid-market.(News Analysis + Trends)
December 1, 2004... Start-up Crosswalk Inc. is targeting the "M" part of the SMB (small to medium-sized business) market with storage management software that is based on a unique (at least in the mid range market, according to analysts) knowledge base engine. ...

CommVault rolls out next-gen software.(News Analysis + Trends)(CommVault Systems Inc.)
December 1, 2004... With the recent release of its second-generation QiNetix platform, CommVault is taking further steps to differentiate its software from traditional backup-and-recovery applications as well as specialized storage management suites from a variety...

Quantum, Sony target DDS market: Quantum buys Certance, Sony launches new AIT.(News Analysis + Trends)(Sony Electronics Inc)
December 1, 2004... While much of the attention in the tape industry has been on the "super-drive" category, the low-end market, which has long been dominated by the DDS/DAT format, has hardly been silent as vendors scramble for a share of the still-sizable...

ADIC integrates disk, tape.(News Analysis + Trends)(Advanced Digital Information Corp)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... With the 2.0 release of its Pathlight VX disk-based backup product next month, Advanced Digital Information Corp. (ADIC) claims it is taking steps toward addressing some of the problems with existing disk-based backup products, including issues...

StorageQuest of Ottawa, ON, Canada, has selected Microboards as its exclusive US distributor for its Multi-services Storage Manager (MSM) line of network storage management products.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... StorageQuest of Ottawa, ON, Canada, has selected Microboards as its exclusive US distributor for its Multi-services Storage Manager (MSM) line of network storage management products. The MSM was developed to address data archival by providing...

CNT has an OEM agreement with IBM for the sale and worldwide distribution of its UltraNet Multi-service Director (UMD) product.(Business Briefs)(Computer Network Technology Corp.)(International Business Machines Corp.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... CNT has an OEM agreement with IBM for the sale and worldwide distribution of its UltraNet Multi-service Director (UMD) product. IBM will resell the UMD products under the TotalStorage brand.

Network Intelligence Corp.(Business Briefs)(technology intergration agreement with EMC Corp.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Network Intelligence Corp. announced a technology integration agreement with EMC that allows EMC Dantz Retrospect software to provide disk-to-disk backup, recovery, and archival of the Network Intelligence Engine and data systems, including...

ADVA Optical Networking's FSP 2000 and FSP 3000 systems.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... ADVA Optical Networking's FSP 2000 and FSP 3000 systems have been verified by Brocade as interoperable with Brocade-based SAN infrastructure.

IBM.(Business Briefs)(International Business Machines Corp. has selected Seagate Technology's 2.5-inch Savvio disk drives)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... IBM has selected Seagate Technology's 2.5-inch Savvio disk drives for use in its IBM eServer BladeCenter HS20 systems.

Acopia Networks.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Acopia Networks has secured $25 million in Series C funding, bringing the total capital raised to more than $65 million. This round was led by new investor Goldman Sachs, with participation by existing investors Charles River Ventures, Accel...

In separate announcements, Fujifilm and Sony recently said that they have begun shipping LTO Ultrium 3 media.(Business Briefs)(Sony Electronics Inc.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... In separate announcements, Fujifilm and Sony recently said that they have begun shipping LTO Ultrium 3 media; the two companies are also both working on an LTO WORM enhancement. Fujifihn expects to ship the WORM product by year-end; Sony hopes...

Emulex' LightPulse LP10000DC dual-channel and midrange LP1050 PCI-X Fibre Channel HBAs are certified by Unisys Corp.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Emulex' LightPulse LPI0000DC dual-channel and midrange LP1050 PCI-X Fibre Channel HBAs are certified by Unisys Corp. for use with its ES7000 enterprise servers.

OuterBay's Application Data Management (ADM) Suite will be integrated with the IBM TotalStorage DR550.(Business Briefs)(OuterBay Technologies)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... OuterBay's Application Data Management (ADM) Suite will be integrated with the IBM TotalStorage DR550, enabling customers to leverage the ADM Suite with IBM's newest data-retention offering to address long-term data retention and regulatory...

Symantec has expanded its security partnership with Network Appliance.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Symantec has expanded its security partnership with Network Appliance to provide system and data protection and recovery.

Users, vendors face SMI-S hurdles; one issue is how vendors will distribute their SMI-S interfaces.(Special Report)
December 1, 2004... More and more end users are asking vendors if their products support the new and evolving SMI-S storage management standard--a sign that in 2005 SMI-S may play a stronger role in users' storage spending decisions. But some vendors say that...

What are the applications for IP Storage? Case studies illustrate how IP Storage protocols such as iSCSI, FCIP, and iFCP provide more-affordable storage connectivity options.
December 1, 2004... Over the past year, IT professionals have shown increasing interest in IP Storage solutions. A year ago, it was mainly early adopters, but today you can find IP Storage deployments in many mainstream IT production environments. The rate of...

User survey reveals BC/DR trends; the third in a series of articles on data protection focuses on business continuance and disaster recovery.
December 1, 2004... This article is the third in a series that explores trends in backup, archiving, and business continuance and disaster recovery. It is based on the results of an in-depth (more than 200 questions per respondent) survey of 110 IT managers,...

Bank uses monitoring tools to manage 250TB SAN; benefits include improved problem diagnosis and better performance, response times, and reliability.(Case Study; Halifax Bank of Scotland)
December 1, 2004... THE HALIFAX BANK OF SCOTLAND (HBOS), which was formed through the merger of Halifax and Bank of Scotland in 2001, has assets of more than 400 million [pounds sterling] and is the UK's largest mortgage and savings provider. With more than 22...

In the lab: SATA D2D backup for desktops: Serial ATA (SATA) disk drives in low-cost RAID arrays and disk-to-disk (D2D) backup are usually thought of as server technologies. Could they also be a magic bullet on the desktop?(Lab Review; CMS Velocity Series BounceBack Professional 5.4 backup software)
December 1, 2004... TODAY, THE PRIMARY INTERNAL STORAGE interconnect on the desktop is Ultra ATA, which evolved from the original parallel ATA interface introduced in the mid-1980s. Ultra ATA maintains backward-compatibility with all previous ATA revisions, using...

Storage-specific teams a necessity: as the management of storage supersedes management of servers, system administrators may need to morph into system/storage administrators.(User View)
December 1, 2004... THE TASKS OF A SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR'S job are changing. From small to large environments, system administrators used to spend their days (and nights) managing multiple servers with locally attached disks. We tuned servers, managed disks and...

Rasilient launches SATA/FC/iSCSI raid.(New Products)(Rasilient Systems)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Start-up Rasilient Systems recently entered the market with the RASTOR 4000 disk subsystem for the SMB market. The system is based on Linux software that emulates RAID and volume management functionality, the iSCSI protocol, and active-active...

iSCSI product wrap-up.(New Products)(SCSI protocol over TCP/IP )
December 1, 2004... Although end-user adoption of IP SANs is still in its infancy stages, vendors introduce a slew of iSCSI-related products over the last couple of months. Here's a sampling: EqualLogic extended its line of iSCSI-based PeerStorage Arrays with...

Panasas branches out.(New Products)
December 1, 2004... Previously focused primarily on large laboratory facilities such as Los Alamos and Sandia, Panasas is trying for more mainstream appeal by branching out into vertical markets such as broadcasting, media, and oil/gas exploration with its...

Isilon debuts third-gen file system.(New Products)(Isilon Systems)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Isilon Systems has released the third generation of its OneFS distributed file system, which is used with the company's clustered storage systems. One of the new features is FlexProtect-AP technology, which can rebuild a failed 250GB disk in...

ExaGrid's NAS 'self protects'.(New Products)
December 1, 2004... ExaGrid's Advanstor combines primary NAS storage with an integrated suite of data-protection capabilities. The two-tier disk solution uses Serial ATA-based GRIDdisks and includes automated data migration and continuous on-site/off-site backup...

Finisar tests SANs.(New Products; Finisar's NetWisdom 2.0 real-time analysis and monitoring software)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... In the 2.0 version of its NetWisdom real-time monitoring and analysis system, Finisar added a dashboard that allows SAN administrators to view and get snapshots of an entire SAN fabric. In addition, NetWisdom is available as a software and/or...

NeoScale debuts SAN VPN appliance.(New Products)(NeoScale Systems)(Virtual private networks)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... NeoScale Systems' CryptoStor SAN VPN security appliance is designed to address the latency and performance issues related to the transmission of storage applications over metropolitan area networks (MANs). The appliance uses AES-256 to encrypt...

InoStor ships autoloader, NAS.(New Products)
December 1, 2004... InoStor is shipping a 1U rack-mount DLT VS160 tape autoloader. The unit is the first member of Tandberg Data's new StorageLoader family of automation products. (InoStor is a Tandberg Data company.) Mounted in a 19-inch rack, the DLT VS160...

Gateway launches LTO3 autoloader.(New Products)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Gateway's model 823 tape autoloader uses LTO3 drives and media and comes in a 2U package. A 6.4TB version is priced at $6,499 with one drive and eight tape cartridges. Each cartridge holds 800GB of compressed data; the drives have a transfer...

Bocada adds compliance features.(New Products)
December 1, 2004... The 3.5 release of Bocada's BackupReport software enables management of distributed data-protection environments, regardless of the underlying technology or system architecture. The new release features the following: * Automated service...

TimeSpring debuts CDP software.(New Products)(continuous data-protection)(TimeSpring Software)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... TimeSpring Software has debuted its Time-Data file-based continuous data-protection (CDP) software for Windows platforms. The software automatically captures all changes to application data in real time, enabling data recovery in minutes. All...

Procom doubles NAS capacity.(New Products)
December 1, 2004... Procom recently doubled the capacity of its high-end NetFORCE 4000 series NAS fliers by supporting 300GB disk drives, bringing the filer's maximum raw capacity to 67TB for model NF4200C and 33TB for model NF4100 and improving storage density to...

Winternals upgrades backup/recovery software.(New Products)(Winternals Software L.P.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The 2.0 version of Winternals' Recovery Manager software includes new features such as the following: * Expanded recovery capabilities, including files, user registry settings, and user data; * Improved efficiency (only changed...

Cutting Edge enhances software.(New Products)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Version 2 of Cutting Edge's 64-bit Edge-Ware software is based on the Linux 2.6 kernel, supports volume sizes up to 133 petabytes, and has a transfer rate of more than 600Mbps. An optional distributed storage module adds iSCSI (target and...

Imceda backs up Exchange, SQL.(New Products)(Imceda Software )(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Imceda Software recently announced availability of LiteSpeed for Exchange software, which provides e-mail backup and recovery for Exchange environments. Features include adaptive compression, and mailbox, task, header, contact and calendar...

Tek-Tools addresses compliance.(New Products)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Last month, Tek-Tools began shipping Profiler Rx for Compliance Reporting. Profiler Rx is a suite of reporting and management tools designed to help enterprises meet compliance reporting objectives in accordance with federal and state...

March 7-9 Network Storage Conference--Milpitas, CA.(Calendar)
December 1, 2004... March 7-9 Network Storage Conference--Milpitas, CA The conference is dedicated to analyzing new architectural processes in network storage. Sessions focus on integrating systems, networks, and storage; provisioning and managing...