InfoStor articles from May 2002

InfoStor archives from May 2002

Survey reveals user priorities, SAN/NAS adoption rate.
May 1, 2002... A recent survey of 323 IT managers at sites with more than lTB of disk capacity, conducted by Peripheral Concepts, reveals a number of interesting conclusions regarding end users' storage priorities and the rate of adoption of storage area...

First DAFS product debuts.(DAFS Database Accelerator DBMS from Network Appliance)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2002... Two years after launching the Direct Access File System (DAFS) initiative, Network Appliance is rolling our the first DAFS product, which will accelerate performance for IBM DB2, Oracle 8i and 9i, and Sybase database environments running on...

Serverless backup not ready for prime time.(NetBackup Flash-Backup, NetBackup ServerFree and ServerFree Agent from Veritas Software)
May 1, 2002... No one would dispute the benefits of doing backup over a storage area network (SAN) versus over a local area network (IAN). Nor would anyone dispute the potential "killer app" benefits of taking the backup server out of the equation with a...

Software--and standards--are the keys to TCO and ROI. (Editorial).
May 1, 2002... The dominant mantras in the IT community all involve the repetition of total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI). Hardware vendors have responded over the last year by slashing prices (and by peppering their PowerPoint...

IBM and Hitachi Ltd. are combining their hard-disk drive businesses into a single company. (Business Briefs).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... IBM and Hitachi Ltd. are combining their hard-disk drive businesses into a single company, as yet unnamed. Hitachi is expected to have a 70% stake in the joint venture in the first year. The venture will be based in San Jose, CA, and will have...

QLogic and Cisco Systems have entered into an alliance. (Business Briefs).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... QLogic and Cisca Systems have entered into an alliance, which will include agreements to integrate QLogic technology and components into Cisco systems storage networking products, marketing of solutions, and joint interoperability testing.

NSI Software has a software licensing agreement with Compaq Computer. (Business Briefs).(will include an evaluation copy of StorageWorks NAS)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... NSI Software has a software licensing agreement with Compaq Computer, where by Compaq will include an evaluation copy of StorageWorks NAS Data Copy Powered by NSI Double-Take with each Storage-Works NAS B3000 solution.

Exabyte and Toshiba's Computer Systems Group (CSG) have announced a third-party add-on agreement in which Exabyte VXA-1. (Business Briefs).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Exabyte and Toshiba's Computer Systems Group (CSG) have announced a third-party add-on agreement in which Exabyte VXA-1 tape drives will be offered as a storage device with Dantz Retrospect Backup Software on Toshiba's Magnia line of servers.

Pioneer-Standard is adding Hitachi Data Systems to its roster of OEMs that includes Compaq and IBM. (Business Briefs).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Pioneer-Standard is adding Hitachi Data Systems to its roster of OEMs that includes Compaq and IBM. Pioneer will distribute the Hitachi Freedom Storage Lightning 9900 Series and the Thunder 9200 systems, the Hi-Command management framework...

Compaq and CommVault are expanding their strategic relationship covering certification, distribution, and support of Galaxy software. (Business Briefs).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Compaq and CommVault are expanding their strategic relationship covering certification, distribution, and support of Galaxy software. Under terms of the agreement, Compaq will resell Galaxy data management and protection software to customers...

Eurologic Systems signed a strategic OEM agreement with Avid Technology. (Business Briefs).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Eurologic Systems signed a strategic OEM agreement with Avid Technology to supply 2Gb Fibre Channel storage solutions that will be part of Avid Unity MediaNet, Avid's shared media network.

Legato Systems and Siemens Business Services GmbH & Co. OHG (SBS) announced a technical support services agreement. (Business Briefs).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Legato Systems and Siemens Business Services GmbH & Co. OHG (SBS) announced a technical support services agreement, making Germany-based SBS the strategic service provider of technical support for Legato's Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA)...

McData moves 2Gbps pricing down, availability up. (Business Briefs).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Pricing and availability of McData's 2Gbps family of products (Sphereon 3000 Series Fabric Switches and Intrepid 6000 Series Director) have changed (see "Low-cost switches enable entry-level SANs," April 2002, p.1). McData's Sphereon 3232...

1 Vision eases Windows-based NAS management. (News Analysis & Trends).(vNAS Pro/Enterprise)
May 1, 2002... 1 Vision believes the answer to the management problems facing Windows-based file-server and network-attached-storage (NAS) users lies with its distributed file-aggregation software: vNAS Pro/Enterprise. The software is one of several...

Veritas beefs up Windows software. (News Analysis & Trends).
May 1, 2002... Veritas' recent introduction of Windows 2000 storage software products may help Microsoft make inroads into enterprise data centers, a market space that the software giant has traditionally been unable to penetrate. "Microsoft wants to...

Scale Eight to enter NAS market. (News Analysis & Trends).
May 1, 2002... Citing limitations inherent in current network-attached storage (NAS) architectures, Scale Eight is developing an alternative NAS technology via its Distributed Storage Software (DSS), which enables large-scale single-image NAS pools that can...

Tape library shipments rise, revenue dips: LTO making inroads against Super DLT. (News Analysis & Trends).
May 1, 2002... All things considered, the tape library market had a good year last year, but not as solid as many had anticipated. According to Freeman Reports' annual rape library report, total unit shipments grew 3% in 2001, to 63,500 units, while total...

ADIC merges disk, tape management. (News Analysis & Trends).
May 1, 2002... Seattle-based Advanced Digital Information Corp. (ADIC) is raking a new approach to hierarchical storage management (HSM). Leveraging its existing HSM, tape, and file-system technologies, the company has developed a storage management suite...

Imation's Storage Professional Services (SPS) group and Avnet Computer Marketing, an operating group of Avnet. (Business Briefs).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Imation's Storage Professional Services (SPS) group and Avnet Computer Marketing, an operating group of Avnet, have established strategic alliances that will enable Avnet Computer Marketing to bolster its portfolio of enterprise storage...

Fujitsu Computer Products of America and Adaptec announced the qualification of Fujitsu. (Business Briefs).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Fujitsu Computer Products of America and Adaptec announced the qualification of Fujitsu's hard disk drives with Adaptec's DuraStor external storage solutions.

National Semiconductor and iReady, which deals in hardware accelerated Internet protocol processing. (Business Briefs).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... National Semiconductor and iReady, which deals in hardware accelerated Internet protocol processing, have formed a strategic partnership aimed at delivering next-generation semiconductor solutions for the Gigabit Ethernet and iSCSI storage...

Rave Computer Association has formed a partnership with Nexsan. (Business Briefs).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Rave Computer Association has formed a partnership with Nexsan to supply its customers with Nexsan's full line of InfiniSAN network storage and disk-to-disk backup solutions.

Trebia, Hifn address IP SAN security.
May 1, 2002... With the promise of IP storage comes a new set of security concerns. In an effort to stay one step ahead of the IP adoption curve, storage vendors have already begun taking steps to provide end users with the necessary tools and education to...

Capacity at a crossroads. (Reader-Expert I/O).
May 1, 2002... I need to build a digital archive for scanned images and other content, and I am looking for the most cost-effective solution. I expect to have about 5TB today with upward of 20TB in the next three to five years. Do I need a jukebox, or can I...

SAN management software requires component integration: many point products are available, but end users are demanding integrated, interoperable, end-to-end solutions. (Special Report).
May 1, 2002... When we last addressed the topic of storage area network (SAN) management software six months ago, the industry was still distilling this concept into discernable levels of functionality, each with unique business benefits. Since then, vendors...

Storage policy management: definitions and details; policy management affects all levels of the storage hierarchy, from disk array controllers to high-level storage management software.
May 1, 2002... Policy management is one of the newest catch phrases in the storage industry. It is being applied to virtually everything relating to storage Arrays have internal policy management algorithms to manage the cache, switches have internal policy...

Optimize backup assets to reduce cost, complexity: storage administrators can optimize backup assets such as tape libraries, servers, and media to deliver substantial savings in both cost and manageability.
May 1, 2002... By paying attention to key metrics such as the ratio of data on tape to data on disk, administrators can quickly identify inefficiencies in backup. Often, a simple change in image retention or backup schedules can deliver tremendous savings...

Storage management is key to lowering TCO: to avoid a TCO TKO, storage administrators should consolidate resources and choose subsystems with the right management hooks.
May 1, 2002... The amount of storage an IT administrator can manage depends largely on how well devices and software plug into an organizations larger storage management strategy. Many of the advantages offered by storage devices are offset by the higher...

Transport protocol considerations for IP SANs: this article, the second in a two-part series, examines the pros and cons of using TCP vs. the User Datagram Protocol for SAN extension. (Part II).
May 1, 2002... Transporting storage traffic within the data center uses a combination of the SCSI storage protocol and the Fibre Channel network protocol. Transporting storage traffic across IP networks requires a corresponding assembly of protocols, matching...

High-performance SANs: does TCP 'stack' up? Before users can take advantage of IP storage, a number of technical hurdles need to be cleared.
May 1, 2002... As IP storage protocols approach standardization, the trend toward IP-based transport for storage area network (SAN) applications is gaining momentum. The ubiquity and attractive economics of IP networks, including the Internet, as well as the...

What's ahead for storage service providers? The model hasn't lived up to its original promise, but SSPs can still save IT organizations money because of economies of scale, while providing better data protection.
May 1, 2002... The storage service provider (SSP) industry has lived through a life-time in just two years. It emerged with much fanfare and excitement as SSPs evangelized the concept of selling storage as a utility. Companies would no longer buy and manage...

IP storage: a review of iSCSI, FCIP iFCP: finalized standards for running block-level data over IP networks are due this year. (SNIA On Storage).
May 1, 2002... With the advent of new IP storage products and transport protocol standards--iSCSI, FCIP and iFCP (due out in mid-2002)--end users now have more choices for accessing data over IP networks. With the emergence of these products and standards,...

Protocol options lead to 'storage-agnostic networks': with the confluence of Fibre Channel, IP/iSCSI, and InfiniBand, the "one-size-fits-all" rule won't apply in the storage networking arena. (Opinion).
May 1, 2002... Over time, we have seen a shift from proprietary storage interfaces on mainframes, midrange systems, and PCs to more open interfaces like parallel SCSI and, more recently, to Fibre Channel and FICON storage area networks (SANs). There is...

Bus-Tech ties mainframes to open systems storage. (Disk/Connectivity).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2002... Bus-Tech's Mainframe Appliance for Storage (MAS) is a virtual tape controller for System/390 or zSeries mainframes that provides ESCON connectivity to SCSI or Fibre Channel disk storage. The MAS operates as a virtual tape subsystem that...

MTI ships 2Gbps RAID array. (Disk/Connectivity).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2002... Claiming performance of more than 350MBps, MTI Technology last month began shipments of the Vivant 400 Series disk arrays, which feature end-to-end 2Gbps Fibre Channel speeds. The array is available with 36.4GB or 72.8GB drives, for a total...

Low-end RAID, NAS. (Disk/Connectivity).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2002... Arena Maxtronic recently released the IB-1400 RAID subsystem, which uses an Intel RISC processor. The IB-1400 is a four-bay Ultra2 SCSI-IDE device that stores more than 640GB and provides support for RAID levels, 0, 1, 0+1, 3, and 5. Features...

Maxtor debuts Ultra320 SCSI disk drives. (Disk/Connectivity).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2002... Claiming to be the first 10,000rpm disk drive to incorporate the Ultra32O SCSI (320MBps burst transfer rate) interface, Maxtor has begun shipments of the Atlas 10K III-U320 drive. The drive is compatible with RAID controllers from vendors such...

I-Tech analyzes FC, GbE, iSCSI. (Disk/Connectivity).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2002... I-Tech's Satellite-32MP multi-protocol analyzer can be used to test Fibre Channel, Gigabit Ethernet, or iSCSI protocols on storage network connections. Up to 64 dedicated processors support cooperative analysis across multiple channels, and...

Dot Hill enhances 'storage managers'. (Disk/Connectivity).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2002... Dot Hill Systems has added the Axis Advanced version to its line of "storage managers. Axis Advanced provides two Fibre Channel SAN ports, a Gigabit Ethernet NAS port, and an Ultral6O SCSI direct-attached storage port for "any-to-any"...

Sony combines HSM, DTF libraries. (Tape).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2002... Sony is bundling a system that includes its PetaServe hierarchical storage management (HSM) software with the company's Digital Tape Format (DTF)-based libraries. Dubbed PetaSite Select Systems, the configurations are available with either SCSI...

Neartek virtualizes tape. (Software).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2002... Last month, Neartek launched its Virtual Storage Engine 2 (VSE2) software, which provides tape virtualization in heterogeneous (mainframe, midrange, and open systems) environments. The software minimizes the need for dedicated drives and...

Inrange combines analysis and capacity-planning tools. (Software).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2002... Inrange Technologies' PerformanceVSN is a performance-monitoring tool that allows administrators to access application-level statistics across open systems and FICON storage networks. PerformanceVSN provides correlation reports, device and...

StoreAge enhances storage virtualization. (Software).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2002... StoreAge Networking Technologies recently released Storage Virtualization Manager (SVM) 3, which adds a MultiCopy feature for disaster-recovery applications. MultiCopy allows users to create multiple copies of volumes "on-the-fly." The module...

Vendors expand SRM functionality. (Software).(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2002... A number of storage resource management (SRM) software vendors recently expanded their product families. For example, Precise Software Solutions introduced Precise/SiteStor SRM, a multi-platform storage performance management system that...

Prisa improves SAN management software. (Software).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2002... Prisa Networks recently introduced its VisualSAN 2.0 management software for SANs. The new release improves scalability, manageability, reliability, and throughput. Other upgrades include new security applications, zone management, SAN device...

Storability offers storage management software. (Software).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 1, 2002... Storability's Global Storage Manager software is designed to simplify management of heterogeneous storage infrastructures, enabling control and management of multi-site, multi-vendor storage environments. Global Storage Manager provides...

Calendar.
May 1, 2002... iSCSI Architecture and Instrumentation Training Class Powered by Medusa Labs, a wholly owned subsidiary of Finisar Systems, this three-day course is designed to give development, field applications, and test engineers as well as technical...