InfoStor articles from December 2006

InfoStor archives from December 2006

File virtualization tops users' priority list.(NEWS ANALYSIS + TRENDS)
December 1, 2006... According to a recent end-user survey by TheInfoPro (TIP) research firm, file-based virtualization technologies are topping the shopping lists of enterprise IT professionals as they battle faster-than-anticipated storage growth and mounting...

How users address compliance, part 1: hint: it's often an afterthought.(CASE STUDIES)
December 1, 2006... Given the amount of vendor hype surrounding compliance, you would think IT managers spend (or should spend) most of their time sorting out how best to comply with the latest spate of federal and state regulations, or how to prepare their data...

EMC acquires de-duplication vendor.(NEWS ANALYSIS + TRENDS)
December 1, 2006... In the latest of its ongoing string of software-related acquisitions, EMC was expected to complete its acquisition this month of Avamar Technologies for $165 million in cash. Avamar is-known primarily for its data de-duplication products and...

Wanted: VARs, integrators ... writers.(EDITORIAL)
December 1, 2006... At first glance it may seem that InfoStor is written solely for end users. That's not the case. We try to address the needs of both the user and reseller/integrator communities in our editorial content because almost half of our 38,000 readers...

Attune Systems.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
December 1, 2006... Attune Systems has secured $14 million in a new round of funding led by RWI Ventures. Participation in this round also included GF Private Equity Group, LLC, as a new investor, and existing investors Alloy Ventures, QTV Capital, Rock Creek...

Symantec has signed a new interoperability agreement with Oracle.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
December 1, 2006... Symantec has signed a new interoperability agreement with Oracle providing for qualification of Veritas Storage Foundation for Oracle RAC synchronously with the release of new Oracle RAC offerings. The agreement governs the companies' joint...

Data Domain has become a VMware Technology Alliance Partner.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
December 1, 2006... Data Domain has become a VMware Technology Alliance Partner.

Nexsan Technologies and Waterford Technologies, a provider of e-mail archiving solutions.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
December 1, 2006... Nexsan Technologies and Waterford Technologies, a provider of e-mail archiving solutions, have an integrated solution for e-mail and file archiving that features Nexsan's Assureon Secure Storage Appliance and Waterford's MailMeter Archive. With...

Adaptec's Serial ATA 1220SA and 1430SA HostRAID controllers support Intel's latest PCIe interconnect.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
December 1, 2006... Adaptec's Serial ATA 1220SA and 1430SA HostRAID controllers support Intel's latest PCIe interconnect.

Xiotech's Magnitude 3D 3000 storage system has received VMware ESX Server 3.0 certification.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
December 1, 2006... Xiotech's Magnitude 3D 3000 storage system has received VMware ESX Server 3.0 certification. Magnitude 3D 3000 was added to the VMware ESX Server 3.0 "Storage/SAN Compatibility Guide" after completing compatibility testing.

Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA).(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
December 1, 2006... The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has announced its 2007 board of directors: Vincent Franceschini (Hitachi Data Systems), chairman; Matthew Brisse (Dell), vice chairman; Phillip Mills (IBM), secretary; and Wayne M. Adams (EMC),...

Emulex's AV150 Intelligent Storage Processor is shipping with McData's Application Services Module (ASM) to enable fabric-based services.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
December 1, 2006... Emulex's AV150 Intelligent Storage Processor is shipping with McData's Application Services Module (ASM) to enable fabric-based services. Emulex claims up to 1.4 million I/Os per second and 2,300MBps throughput. Separately, Emulex and Brocade...

Storewiz.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
December 1, 2006... Storewiz, which focuses on data compression solutions, has unveiled its Vanguard channel partner program, The program includes product qualification/ certification; sales and technical training; sales and marketing support; and a partner-only...

PowerFile.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
December 1, 2006... PowerFile, a maker of archive appliances for permanent storage of digital content and assets, introduced its VARchive Reseller Program, which focuses on fixed-content active archival solutions, especially in ECM/ document management, e-mail,...

Topio Data Protection Suite 3.0 (TDPS) has been certified by Cisco.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
December 1, 2006... Topio Data Protection Suite 3.0 (TDPS) has been certified by Cisco for its MDS 9000 Storage Services Module.

NetApp completes Topio acquisition.(NEWS ANALYSIS + TRENDS)
December 1, 2006... Network Appliance this month completed its acquisition of Topio in an all-cash transaction worth approximately $160 million. The integration of Topio's software and Net-App's data management solutions will enable enterprises to replicate...

SNIA prioritizes software development.(NEWS ANALYSIS + TRENDS)
December 1, 2006... The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is adding software development to its repertoire to more efficiently help vendors incorporate standards-based storage management into their products, and ultimately, into end-user environments....

LSI Logic buys StoreAge.(NEWS ANALYSIS + TRENDS)
December 1, 2006... LSI Logic completed its acquisition of StoreAge Networking Technologies this month in a deal valued at approximately $50 million in cash. Once the integration work is completed, LSI will offer StoreAge's virtualization and copy services...

The time is right for CDP: continuous data protection offers clear-cut advantages over traditional backup, snapshots, and replication.(VAR VIEW)
December 1, 2006... Advancements in technology do not come without a fight. In recent years we have repeatedly witnessed this phenomenon. There was resistance to a new tape format called LTO: "Who needs it when we have DLT?" Or, what about the concept of backing...

QLogic enters SAN director market.(NEWS ANALYSIS + TRENDS)
December 1, 2006... In a somewhat surprising move, QLogic recently entered the director-class switch market with shipments of a 128-port SAN switch, putting the company in competition with Brocade, McData (which is being acquired by Brocade), and Cisco (with which...

EMC upgrades disk arrays.(NEWS ANALYSIS + TRENDS)
December 1, 2006... EMC has doubled the performance and storage capacities of several of its hardware platforms with the rollout of new models of the Symmetrix DMX-3, Clariion CX3 UltraScale series, Celerra NS NAS platform, and its enterprise disk library. The...

Dell adds removable hard drives.(NEWS ANALYSIS + TRENDS)
December 1, 2006... Dell has entered the removable disk-drive market with the PowerVault RD1000, which is designed to back up and restore data for small to medium-sized businesses, branch offices, and individual power users. The new drives will replace Dell's...

Data protection, BC and DR for SMBs: a number of end-user surveys reveal IT managers' biggest problems with data protection, as well as solutions that small and medium-sized businesses should consider.(SPECIAL REPORT)
December 1, 2006... The explosion of corporate data in distributed environments and the advent of tighter regulations are putting tremendous pressure on corporations to protect and access their data. Typically, IT departments have tried to protect data by using...

Tying e-discovery needs to storage architectures: digital computer forensics creates new challenges for storage professionals.
December 1, 2006... The growing requirement for supporting digital computer forensics within the enterprise is a direct result of the use of computers in more than 80% of business communications today. However, the ability to discover, recover, and produce...

A quick review of storage benchmarks: first you need to know what benchmarks are available, and then you need to know how to interpret the benchmark results.
December 1, 2006... Purchasing new technology can be a daunting task. Many factors come into play, including product features, price, performance, service, upgradeability, warranty, and existing vendor relationships. Although answers to many of the key decision...

Analyzing I/O performance bottlenecks: adding more hardware is not the answer to eliminating performance bottlenecks in the data center.
December 1, 2006... MOST DATA CENTERS HAVE BOTTLENECK areas that impact application performance and service delivery to IT customers and users. Possible bottleneck locations include servers, networks, applications, and storage systems. These areas, in particular...

ILM advice: collaboration is critical: successful implementation of information lifecycle management starts with collaboration among various IT and non-IT groups within an organization.(SNIA on STORAGE)
December 1, 2006... IF YOU ARE A CIO OR INFORMATION management professional, your job may be at risk. This is one of the messages in a recent paper, Collaboration: the News Standard of Excellence, jointly written by ARMA International and the Storage Networking...

The pros and cons of NAS virtualization: here's a quick rundown of the advantages of file-level virtualization, and some tips on how to choose the best solution for your requirements.(OPINION)
December 1, 2006... EVEN THOUGH NAS VIRTUALIZATION is still in the early adopter phase, it provides the same benefits of SAN virtualization, and more. This article focuses on some of the reasons why IT organizations should consider implementing a virtualization...

Overland RAID array supports SAS.(NEW PRODUCTS)
December 1, 2006... Overland Storage has begun shipments of the first RAID arrays in its Ultamus product family that support the emerging Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) disk interface. However, although SAS arrays typically support both SAS and Serial ATA (SATA) disk...

SGI rolls out NAS appliances.(NEW PRODUCTS)
December 1, 2006... SGI recently began shipments of a pair of NAS appliances for high-performance computing (HPC) environments and end users with large-capacity requirements. The InfiniteStorage 4550 is designed to support high-performance applications while the...

Verari ships NAS for HPC.(Verari Systems Inc.)(network attached storage systems)(high performance computing)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Verari's BladeRack 2 VB5150 storage subsystem addresses NAS requirements in both HPC and enterprise markets. The VB5150 includes a VB1150 head node and four VB1055S disk blades. The head node contains the NAS I/O processing, RAID controller,...

Compellent intros 'thin replication'.(launched network storage management software)(Compellent Storage Center 3.5)
December 1, 2006... The new version of Compellent's Storage Center SAN platform is designed to cut bandwidth and storage management requirements by half, according to company claims. Storage Center 3.5 focuses on remote replication and disaster recovery. The...

Product highlights from VMworld.
December 1, 2006... At the VMworld 2006 conference in Los Angeles last month, a number of storage vendors demonstrated products that integrate with a variety of VMware offerings, such as VMware ESX Server, Virtual Infrastructure, VMotion, Virtual Machine Importer,...

Calendar.
December 1, 2006... January 6-7 Storage Visions 2007 Conference--Las Vegas, NV Preceding the Consumer Electronics Show, this event focuses on storage system products and components, portable storage systems, storage system road maps for various markets,...

iQstor ships 4Gbps FC array.(fibre channel storage system)(iQstor Networks)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... iQstor Networks is shipping the iQ2880, 4Gbps Fibre Channel storage system that includes a variety of embedded software tools, some of which are included in the price of the system while others are available through separate licensing fees. The...

AMCC overcomes RAID-6 penalty.(Applied Micro Circuits Corp.)(redundant array of inexpensive disks)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... AMCC claims that its 3ware 9650SE SATA-II RAID controller virtually eliminates the write penalty typically associated with RAID 6. Scott Cleland, AMCC's director of marketing, claims that the performance penalty of the 9650SE controller...

Breece Hill adds LTO libraries.(NEW PRODUCTS)
December 1, 2006... Targeting SMBs, Breece Hill has launched two new tape products: the Q16 autoloader and Q40 library. The entry-level Q16 has a single drive with a pair of eight-cartridge magazines, which deliver up to 12.8TB capacity in a 2U form factor. ...

NeoScale supports 4Gbps Fibre Channel.(NeoScale Systems launched second-generation security appliance)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... NeoScale has added a 4Gbps Fibre Channel model to its line of tape security appliances. The company also introduced a second-generation security appliance that secures data to SCSI-attached tape drives. The new Fibre Channel CryptoStor Tape...

Solix integrates archiving solution with Oracle.(Solix Technologies)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Solix Technologies has integrated a "non-trigger-based" version of its ARCHIVE-jinni active archiving solution with Oracle's E-Business Suite. Triggers are procedural codes that can add complexity and overhead to a database, which could...

CipherOptics manages security keys.(CipherEngine Policy & Key Manager)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... CipherOptics' CipherEngine Policy & Key Manager is a software-based solution designed to eliminate the complexity of policy and key management, in addition to scalability issues associated with traditional encryption. Based on the...

Crossroads focuses on BIA.(NEW PRODUCTS)
December 1, 2006... The latest addition to Crossroads Systems' line of Business Information Assurance (BIA) products is the SurePath ReadVerify Appliance (RVA), which is designed to ensure the integrity, performance, and full utilization of tape backup systems, as...

Intradyn upgrades e-mail appliances.(NEW PRODUCTS)
December 1, 2006... Intradyn has added two new models to its ComplianceVault eSeries line of "all-in-one" e-mail archiving and retrieval appliances, with capacities of 1.5TB (model e1500) and 3.7TB (e3700). The appliances are based on the Intel S5000PAL...