InfoStor articles from March 2004

InfoStor archives from March 2004

User survey: SANs becoming: mainstream.(storage area networks)
March 1, 2004... A recent survey of 100 IT professionals from a variety of companies, including Global 2000 corporations and mid-sized businesses, indicates that storage area networks (SANs) have become "mainstream," with at least one SAN deployed in four out...

IBM beefs up NAS-SAN gateway.
March 1, 2004... Hoping to take advantage of one of the hottest segments of the network-attached storage (NAS) market--NAS-SAN gateways--IBM recently announced its high-end TotalStorage NAS Gateway 500, which will replace its midrange 300G NAS gateway....

EMC goes on hardware binge.
March 1, 2004... After months of hearing a lot about its software and significantly less about its hardware portfolio, EMC last month made one of its broadest hardware announcements to date. In addition to refreshing its Celerra, Centera, CLARiiON, and DMX...

D2D, iSCSI, SATA peak readers' interest.(editorial)(Brief Article)(Editorial)
March 1, 2004... We recently completed a reader survey that in part asked you to rank your interest in a number of relatively new technologies. Readers were asked to rank 14 emerging technologies from "very high interest" to "no interest." Here's the rundown on...

SCSI Trade Association.(Business Briefs)(announces newly elected board)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... The SCSI TRade Association (STA) announced their newly elected board of directors for 2004. Re-elected to the presidency was Harry Mason of LSI Logic. The rest of the board includes Martin Czekalski, vice president (Maxtor); Tonya Comer,...

Fibre Channel Industry Association.(Business Briefs)(announces SANmark Qualified Test Provider Program)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... (The Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) announced the SANmark Qualified Test Provider Program for the benefit of members and non-members. Under the program, third-party test vendors are invited to apply to become qualified SAN mark test...

Storage Networking Industry Association.(Business Briefs)(Storage Management Forum announces election of new board of directors)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... The Storage Networking Industry Association's Storage Management Forum announced the election its new 2004 board of directors; Ray Dunn, chair (Sun Microsystems); Larry Krantz, vice chair (Hewlett-Packard); Julie Ryan, business development...

Candera.(Business Briefs)(secures additional funding)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Candera has secured an additional $12 million in funding. New investors Athenian an Venture Partners and Fort Washington joined the major current venture capital investors--AsiaTech Management, Dali Hook Partners, Hotung Group, New Enterprise...

Maranti Networks.(Business Briefs)(secures financing)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Maranti Networks has secured $26 million in Series C financing led by JPMorgan Partners, with participation by prior investors Menlo Ventures, Trinity Ventures and Alliance Ventures. This latest round brings Maranti's total equity investment to...

3PAR.(Business Briefs)(secures funding)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... 3PAR has secured $32 million in a fourth round of funding, led by Menlo Ventures. Other participants include Mayfield, Worldview Technology Partners, Oracle, Sun, and Veritas.

DataCore Software.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Data Software secured a new round of financing, led by New Enterprise Associates, Flagship Ventures, and Vista Equity Partners.

XIOtech has formalized its reseller agreement with Cisco Systems.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... XIOtech has formalized its reseller agreement with Cisco Systems, which will allow the two companies to deliver storage networking solutions featuring XIOtech Magnitude 3D storage arrays and Cisco MDS 9000 directors and switches.

Irvine, CA-based Broadcom has acquired Nashua, NH-based RAIDCore, a start-up that is developing RAID and virtualize software.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Irvine, CA-based Broadcom has acquired nashua, NH-based RAIDCore, a start-up that is developing RAID and virtualization software. RAIDCore products include a RAID software stack for single- and dual-processor servers. Broadcom is expected to...

XOsoft will work with IBM to develop real-time software migration tools for the IBM TotalStorage SAN File System.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... XOsoft will work with IBM to develop real-time software migration tools for the IBM TotalStorage SAN File System. XOsoft's WANSync will provide a non-distruptive data migration feature allowing these tools to help customers migrate data without...

SANZ will resell American Megatrends Inc.'s (AMI) Linux-based StorTrends NAS 2104 hardware.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... SANZ will resell American Megatrends Inc.'s (AMI) Linux-based StorTrends NAS 2104 hardware, bundle with its Linux-based Stortrends NAS software version 2.2.

Avail Solution and Storage Computer have a partnership.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Avail Solutions and Storage Computer have a partnership, whereby Avail's Integrity software will be integrated into Storage Computer's high-performance Cyber-NAS software.

Silicon Graphics and Atempo have a worldwide reseller agreement.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Silicon Graphics and Atempo have a worldwide reseller agreement, whereby SGI will sell Atempo's Time Navigator data-protection software to customers through SGI's worldwide sales force. Separately, Atempo's Time Navigator is now certified to...

Xyratex Storage Systems has deployed Emulex's InSpeed SOC 320 in its newly announced RS-1600-FC-SBD storage enclosure.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Xyratex Storage Systems has deployed Emulex's InSpeed OSC 320 in its newly announced RS-1600-FC-SBD storage enclosure. Emulex's 20-port InSpeed 2Gbps closure. Emulex's 20-port InSpeed 2Gbps SOC (Switch-On-a-Chip) was used by Xyratex to create...

Data Domain banks on compression for D2D.(news analysis & trends)
March 1, 2004... Hoping to capitalize on growing user interest in disk-to-disk backup and restore (with the emphasis on restore), Data Domain last month introduced its DD200 Restorer disk-based backup-and-recovery file server. Initial customers include...

Start-up ships low-cost SATA appliance.(news analysis & trends)(Candera)
March 1, 2004... Candera, a vendor of network storage controllers, last month announced the availability of a Serial ATA-based disk appliance that it claims is nearly half the price of comparable ATA-based disk arrays from larger vendors, such as EMC's...

Sandial emphasizes SAN performance, QoS.(news analysis & trends)
March 1, 2004... Sandial, a start-up in Portsmouth, NH, last month formally introduced its 14000 Storage Backbone Switch. The company began initial shipments in October and claims more than 20 customers, in eluding New Balance, First Data, and Wide Horizon. ...

QLogic stacks SAN switches.(Storage area network)
March 1, 2004... Following a long-standing trend in the IP/Ethernet switch market, QLogic last month began shipping the industry's first stackable Fibre Channel switches. Stackable IP/Ethernet switches have been available for about a decade from vendors such as...

Veritas focuses on mid-tier backup.(news analysis & trends)
March 1, 2004... When it comes to backing up data, mid-tier users are often put in the position of having to either invest big dollars in enterprise-class products that are too feature-rich for their data-protection needs or settle on low-end products that can...

CA rolls out new ARCserve release.(Computer Associates International Inc.)
March 1, 2004... Computer Associates recently announced the general availability of BrightStor ARCserve Backup r11. Company officials say that highlights of the latest version of the software include support for Microsoft's Virtual Shadow Copy Service (VSS),...

Optical libraries adopt blue lasers.(news analysis & trends)
March 1, 2004... The optical library market is expected to be flat for the next several years, say analysts, but blue-laser optical drive/library/media manufacturers are bullish on the latest technology that is set to take over where magneto-optical (MO)...

Being smart about 'intelligent' switches?(Reader-Expert I/O)
March 1, 2004... Q What's your take on intelligent switching and the role that these types of switches should play in storage management? They say that if you have nothing nice to say, you should say nothing at all. So in keeping with that philosophy, I...

Storability Software's Global Storage Manager (GSM) has achieved compatibility certification with LSI Logic Storage Systems'.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Storability Software's Global Storage Manager (GSM) has achieved compatibility certification with LSI Logic Storage Systems' SANtricity storage manager software and storage controllers.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) announced successful testing of 3Gbps Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS) disk drive interoperability with LSI Logic silicon.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) announced successful testing of 3Gbps Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS) disk drive interoperability with LSI Logic silicon. The LSISAS1064 controller, in an HBA configuration, enabled communication...

Signiant and Continental Resources have a partnership in which CRI will deliver Signiant's Mobilize software solutions.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Signiant and Continental Resources have a partnership in which CRI will deliver Signiant's Mobilize software solutions to customers in industries such as finance, telecommunications, and transportation.

iSCSI attracts early adopters: although most deployments are in relatively small configurations, end users report immediate benefits--and reduced costs--from IP SANs.(Special Report)
March 1, 2004... About a year ago, Atlanta-based HomeBanc's direct-attached storage infrastructure was getting too difficult to maintain, so the company installed a Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) based primarily on EMC CLARiiON disk arrays. However,...

IP SAN solves consolidation, backup challenges.
March 1, 2004... At Pervasive Software in Austin, TX, direct-storage storage was leading to severe problems with storage expansion and backups. "We were storing millions of files on direct-attached storage devices," says Pat Downing, director of IT. "When...

Serial ATA means low-cost storage: for many graphics applications, disk arrays based on SATA disk drives may provide as much performance as Fibre Channel disk arrays--at half the cost.(Storage In The Studio)
March 1, 2004... Digital content professionals have unique requirements when it comes to data and content storage. They need extremely high capacity and as much speed as they can afford. Unfortunately, most studios operate under tight budgets when it comes to...

Studios move to network storage: in media environments, there's a clear trend away from direct-attached storage to network storage, which provides a number of advantages for collaborative projects.(Storage In The Studio)
March 1, 2004... When it comes to the storage infrastructure underpinning your digital content operations, you have three choices: direct-attached storage (DAS), network-attached storage (NAS), or storage area networks (SANs). And studio environments, the trend...

DAMming the flow: digital asset management (DAM) tools help digital content creation (DDC) professionals control rivers of data.(Storage In The Studio)
March 1, 2004... Digital asset management (DAM) is one of those technologies that can be defined in several different ways. Is it simply a method for organizing electronic files? Is it software that controls the flow of work? A hardware-based system of servers...

Network security implications of IP SANs: IP storage area networks pose challenges that may be new to network, storage, and security administrators.
March 1, 2004... The emergence of IP-based storage area networks (SANs), especially those based on the iSCSI protocol, promises to be a boon to IT managers. The potential for gaining the benefits of SANs at a lower cost and with greater ease of implementation...

Tame the storage management beast with SRM: a user/consultant offers his views on how storage resource management (SRM) software can help you get a grip on spiraling management costs.
March 1, 2004... Shrinking budgets and staff, coupled with rapidly growing capacities and data-availability demands, are forcing storage administrators to manage everincreasing volumes of storage with fewer resources. To accomplish this task, storage managers...

Building blocks for information life-cycle management: there is no silver bullet for information life-cycle management yet, but users can begin to build an ILM foundation with existing products.
March 1, 2004... Storage management challenges continue to escalate. Users expect instant, uninterrupted data access; administrators face increased scalability and performance requirements--and restricted budgets; and C-level executives need to ensure their...

D2D backup success depends on software: low-cost arrays are making disk-to-disk (D2D) backup affordable, but don't ignore the software side of the equation.(opinion)
March 1, 2004... New specialized appliances and ATA-based disk arrays at pennies per megabyte deliver terabytes of capacity, excellent reliability and backup speeds that often outpace tape environments. Yet what has many IT organizations rethinking their backup...

IBM.(Serial ATA roundup)
March 1, 2004... IBM recently began shipping the Total-Storage FAStT EXP100 Storage Expansion Unit, which enables the attachment of Serial ATA (SATA) disk drives to the company's FAStT900 and FAStT600 Storage Servers. The rack-mountable enclosure supports up to...

Adaptec.(Serial ATA roundup)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Adaptec is shipping the FS4500 RAID subsystem with SATA disk drives and dual Fibre Channel host interfaces. The FS4500 includes fully redundant components, enhanced thermal and rotation vibration features, support for all RAID levels, up to 1GB...

iSCSI + SATA.(Serial ATA roundup)
March 1, 2004... Adaptec also introduced the iSA1500 RAID array, which is based on SATA drives and an iSCSI external interface, which enables end users to build low-cost IP SANs (see the Special Report on p. 20). Adaptec provides a number of storage services...

Promise Technology.(Serial ATA roundup)
March 1, 2004... This month, Promise Technology also began shipments of a Serial ATA (or Parallel ATA) RAID array with dual iSCSI host ports. The 3U VTrack 15200 includes up to 15 SATA drives and a TCP/IP offload engine (TOE) that the company claims enables...

iQstor Networks.(SATA + services)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... At the Network Storage conference earlier this month, iQstor Networks introduced the iQ1200 Serial ATA RAID array with four Fibre Channel host connections that is priced at 50% less than the company's pure Fibre Channel RAID arrays. A 3.75TB...

nStor.(SATA + services)
March 1, 2004... nStor's NexStor 4700 Serial ATA disk array is available with either four Ultra320 SCSI host connections or two 2Gbps Fibre Channel host connections. The array is based on the company's Wahoo RAID engine. Features include 512MB or 1GB of cache...

Cepoint Networks.(SATA + services)
March 1, 2004... Cepoint Networks' R-Stor Rx524 is a 24-bay, 6TB (scalable to 64TB) Serial ATA RAID 5 array that the company targets primarily at high-end video broadcast and video streaming applications. The array includes 24 250GB SATA drives, optional dual...

Adjile Systems.(SATA + services)
March 1, 2004... Adjile Systems is shipping Serial ATA RAID arrays in 2U eight- or 12-bay, and 3U 16-bay, configurations. The RAID EX series can be configured with single or dual controllers and supports up to 4TB per subsystem. The array includes dual 2Gbps...

LSI Logic.(SATA controllers)
March 1, 2004... LSI Logic's MegaRAID SATA 300-8X is an 8-port Serial ATA controller for PCI-X systems that is compliant with both the SATA I and SATA II specifications. Features include native command queuing, port multiplier, en closure management support,...

Adaptec.(SATA controllers)
March 1, 2004... Adaptec recently released two Serial ATA controllers: the 8-port (single chip) 2810SA and 16-port (two chip) 21610SA. Both support RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 10 (and JBOD configurations); 64MB of cache memory; data-transfer rates of up to...

3ware.(SATA controllers)
March 1, 2004... 3ware's Escalade 8506 Multi-lane Internal (MI) Serial ATA RAID controller supports up to 3TB. Multi-lane technology reduces the number of required connection cables. For example, the board's connector system combines four SATA ports into a...

ARIO Data Networks.(SATA controllers)
March 1, 2004... ARIO Data Networks recently announced a family of external SATA controllers for OEMs. The controllers include Fibre Channel-to-SATA, Ultra 320 SCSI-to-SATA, and iSCSI-to-SATA versions. The controllers support 16 SATA disk channels and offer...

Calendar.(Brief Article)(Calendar)
March 1, 2004... Send brochure/conference information to Marcy Koff, marcyk@pennwell.com or fax: (603) 891-9297. April 5-8 Storage Networking World--Phoenix, AZ Sponsored by Computerworld and SNIA, the event features the following tracks: Voice of...

Fujitsu Computer Products of America.(SATA controllers)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... On the disk drive front, Fujitsu Computer Products of America next month will begin sampling 2.5-inch Serial ATA drives in 40GB, 60GB, and 80GB capacities. The MHT-BH drives include SATA extensions (SATA II Phase 1) such as native command...

ADIC upgrades archiving software.(Software)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... ADIC last month began shipping a new version of its archive software: AMASS for UNIX 5.3.3. Features include support for 4TB of disk cache, enabling higher-performance read/write access rates. The software lets users create archives using...

LXI enhances management software.(Software)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... LXI recently released the 3.5 version of its TMS/ix software, which provides backup, recovery, tape management, and vaulting for Sun Solaris, HP-UX, IBM pSeries AIX, and Linux on any hardware platform. The new release features improved device...

Recovery for Exchange.(Software)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Sonasoft last month announced availability of a new Point-Click Recovery option, a data-protection management console for Microsoft Exchange Server. SonaSafe for Exchange is designed to simplify and automate backup and recovery for single or...