InfoStor articles from January 2006

InfoStor archives from January 2006

VTLs top users' priority list.(virtual tape libraries)
January 1, 2006... A recent end-user survey conducted by TheInfoPro research firm ("Wave 6" of TIP's semi-annual surveys) shows that virtual tape libraries (VTLs) rank as the top storage networking technology in the plans of many large enterprises. In...

Microsoft upgrades SAN, NAS features.(Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2)(Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2003 R2)
January 1, 2006... Microsoft made good on its promise to add enhanced SAN and NAS management capabilities to its Windows Server 2003 operating system last month when it released Windows Server 2003 R2 and Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 to its partners. Among...

CDP survey raises questions.(continuous data protection )
January 1, 2006... When International Data Corp. (IDC) analysts Rhoda Phillips and Natalya Yezhkova started researching continuous data protection (CDP) technology a year ago, they began by categorizing solutions according to whether they were software- or...

Options multiply for users and integrators.(Editorial)
January 1, 2006... END USERS AND SYSTEMS/STORAGE INTEGRATORS are cruising into the New Year with an unprecedented number of choices when it comes to disk drive/array interfaces and drive types: Fibre Channel, parallel SCSI, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), parallel...

Storage Networking Industry Association.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
January 1, 2006... The board of directors of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has elected Wayne Adams, senior technologist at EMC, to serve a second term as chairman through October 2006.

Sun Microsystems has qualified and made generally available McData's Intrepid 10000 director for Fibre Channel and FICON deployments.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
January 1, 2006... Sun Microsystems has qualified and made generally available McData's Intrepid 10000 director for Fibre Channel and FICON deployments. Separately, Sun has selected Emulex' 4Gbps HBAs for its new UltraSPARC T1-based family of Sun Fire servers...

FalconStor.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
January 1, 2006... FalconStor's IPStor Enterprise Edition software, TimeMark, and Snapshot Agent for SQL Server support Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and are now generally available.

Diogenes Analytical Laboratories.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
January 1, 2006... Diogenes Analytical Laboratories recently announced a Storage Buyer's Guild, which will offer price guidance to members. The goal is "to take the mystery out of storage product prices and provide comparative information," according to Diogenes...

Sepaton's S2100-ES2 VTL has passed compatibility testing with IBM's.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
January 1, 2006... Sepaton's S2100-ES2 VTL has passed compatibility testing with IBM's Tivoli Storage Manager and has received IBM TotalStorage Proven qualification.

ONStor and Asigra are partnering to provide a compliance package for enterprise backup and recovery that consolidates remote site data protection.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
January 1, 2006... ONStor and Asigra are partnering to provide a compliance package for enterprise backup and recovery that consolidates remote site data protection. The combination of ONStor's Bobcat NAS gateways and Asigra's Televaulting for Enterprises...

NEC has integrated Emulex' In-Speed SOC 422 embedded storage switching technology into the newest models of NEC's Storage S series line.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
January 1, 2006... NEC has integrated Emulex' In-Speed SOC 422 embedded storage switching technology into the newest models of NEC's Storage S series line of midrange and entry-level storage products--the S500, S1500, and S2500 models.

For its Digitiliti utility-based storage services, Storage Elements is using a combination of clustered controllers.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
January 1, 2006... For its Digitiliti utility-based storage services, Storage Elements is using a combination of clustered controllers from Digi-Data and JBOD disk arrays from Xyratex.

Sonasoft has established a reseller partnership with PlanetMagpie, an IT and network solutions provider.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
January 1, 2006... Sonasoft has established a reseller partnership with PlanetMagpie, an IT and network solutions provider. PlanetMagpie will use the SonaSafe program to bolster its disaster-recovery services.

Tandberg Data will begin shipping Symantec Backup Exec for Windows Servers QuickStart Edition backup-and-recovery software.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
January 1, 2006... Tandberg Data will begin shipping Symantec Backup Exec for Windows Servers QuickStart Edition backup-and-recovery software with selected versions of its StorageLoader LTO tape drives and SLR tape drives.

CIO survey reveals surprises.(NEWS ANALYSIS + TRENDS)
January 1, 2006... A survey of 100 Fortune 1000 CIOs in the US, conducted by Citigroup, revealed a number of surprising results on the storage front. For example, spending on SAN storage is expected to outpace NAS spending by a 3:1 margin over the next year--and...

Tape encryption not a security cure-all.(NEWS ANALYSIS + TRENDS)
January 1, 2006... Thanks to a few high-profile incidents of lost backup tapes in 2005, data security has been boiled down to a simple solution by many vendors: tape encryption. However, the storage security problem can't be solved so easily. It's about the...

Software fills forecasting gap in SRM.(Storage resource management)
January 1, 2006... Storage resource management (SRM) tools have become an integral part of managing networked storage environments by bringing visualization, discovery, provisioning, reporting, and a host of other capabilities to the fingertips of storage...

Emulex pushes FC-SATA spec.(Fibre Channel SATA Tunnelling Protocol)
January 1, 2006... Emulex is spearheading a potential standard, recently dubbed "FC-SATA," that is analogous to Serial Attached SCSI (SAS): Just as SAS subsystems can accommodate both SAS and Serial ATA (SATA) disk drives, FC-SATA arrays would be able to...

Five interfaces, five vendors, five opinions: what's the relative positioning of Fibre Channel, ATA, Serial ATA (SATA), SCSI, and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) in enterprise applications?(SPECIAL REPORT)
January 1, 2006... The good news is that OEMs, systems/storage integrators, and end users have more choices than ever when it comes to choosing disk drive/array interfaces. The bad news is that the plethora of options dictates a thorough examination of the...

Why users are embracing iSCSI SANs: there are many potential benefits of IP SANs based on iSCSI, but relatively low cost is the primary factor.
January 1, 2006... Consolidation. Low-cost replication. Easier management. Familiarity with TCP/IP-Ethernet. The advantages of IP SANs based on the iSCSI protocol are by now a familiar litany to most storage administrators and managers. And although all of those...

Focus on: iSCSI.(NEW PRODUCTS)
January 1, 2006... Here's a brief sampling of some of the more-recent iSCSI-related product announcements, ranging from full-blown IP SANs to silicon controllers: StoneFly Networks' OptiSAN is based on the company's Storage Concentrator systems and advanced...

Building an information management framework: an information management framework (IMF) includes four layers: policy, management, operations, and infrastructure.
January 1, 2006... Corporations around the globe now view information as an asset. As raw data, it's useless, but as business intelligence, it's highly valuable. There is not an inventory tag or an SKU necessarily associated with information, but its use and...

Part 2: data protection over WANs: security: security should be a primary consideration when implementing a WAN-based backup-and-recovery system.
January 1, 2006... In the November 2005 issue of InfoStor (see "Data protection over WANs: The network," p. 32), we described the issues that need to be considered when you are planning to implement backup and recovery over wide area networks. In this article we...

Part 1: information lifecycle management, from A to Z: Part one in our three-part series on ILM focuses on information assurance, data protection, and the importance of context.
January 1, 2006... Data protection is part of a larger strategy--information assurance. Information assurance is the process by which an organization ensures, protects, and verifies the integrity of vital information. Without information assurance, it is...

SNIA sets priorities for 2006: primary areas of focus include standards, security, data management, and end-user education.(Storage Networking Industry Association)
January 1, 2006... THIS ARTICLE REVIEWS KEY ACTIVITIES and initiatives that the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) will be concentrating on this year. Standards that drive the benefits of storage networks to end users and streamline the...

LSI Logic.(Focus on SAS/SATA)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... LSI Logic continued its surge into the SAS space this month with production shipments of two SAS RAID adapters--the 8408E (internal) and 8480E (external)--in its MegaRAID product line. Common features of the two adapters include support for SAS...

Xyratex.(Xyratex Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Xyratex's just-released model 5401 disk array is a 4Gbps Fibre Channel-to-SAS/SATA RAID subsystem. Features include dual-active RAID controllers with MPIO-based Path Manager for multi-path protection, four 4Gbps Fibre Channel host ports, up to...

Adaptec and Maxtor last month teamed up to simplify deployment of SAS systems for systems integrators and resellers via a SAS evaluation kit that includes Maxtor's Atlas SAS disk drives and Adaptec's 4800SAS and 4805SAS RAID controllers and model 335SAS storage enclosure.(Focus on SAS/SATA)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Adaptec and Maxtor last month teamed up to simplify deployment of SAS systems for systems integrators and resellers via a SAS evaluation kit that includes Maxtor's Atlas SAS disk drives and Adaptec's 4800SAS and 4805SAS RAID controllers and...

Rasilient.(Focus on SAS/SATA)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Rasilient's new 6000 series of subsystems are available with support for iSCSI and Fibre Channel SANs, NAS, and 3Gbps SAS/SATA controllers and disk drives. With an expansion controller and chassis, capacity can be extended to 120 drives, or...

iQstor.(Focus on SAS/SATA)
January 1, 2006... iQstor's iQ2280 is a 3U Fibre Channel-to-SATA II subsystem with 7.5TB of capacity using 500GB SATA drives. Features include a 3Gbps transfer rate, support for NCQ, SAS drive support, and four 4Gbps Fibre Channel host ports for an aggregate...

SiliconStor.(Focus on SAS/SATA)
January 1, 2006... Designed for OEMs, SiliconStor's SS1300 is an active-active multiplexer device based on the company's AAMUX technology. The SS1300 allows OEMs to connect SATA drives to SAS subsystems and provides features such as dual-porting, signal...

Promise Technology.(RAID 6 for SATA)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Promise Technology has added support for RAID 6 (double parity RAID) to its line of SuperTrak RAID controllers. RAID 6 performs two different parity computations, providing an extra layer of protection and the ability for an array to tolerate...

Winchester Systems.(RAID 6 for SATA)
January 1, 2006... Winchester Systems has also added support for hardware-based RAID 6 to its SATA-II-based Flash-Disk disk arrays, which also support 4Gbps Fibre Channel host connections, www.winsys.com.

Sony Electronics.(SATA for tape)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... This month, Sony Electronics began shipping AIT-1 Turbo and AIT-2 Turbo tape drives with SATA interfaces, which are expected to be used primarily in disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) backup/recovery configurations. AIT-1 tape drives have a...

Calendar.
January 1, 2006... February 13-15 ILM Summit--Irvine, CA According to organizers, the event is the first stand-alone conference in the US dedicated entirely to ILM It will feature full-day tutorials on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and an introduction to...

Attaching blade servers to SANs.(NEWS ANALYSIS + TRENDS)(storage area networks)
January 1, 2006... It should come as no surprise that storage is no longer a stand-alone purchase. In fact, storage is now a consideration in almost every IT acquisition. And if blade servers are on your road map for 2006 you will need to consider how to work...