InfoStor articles from October 2004

InfoStor archives from October 2004

SRM becomes a priority.(storage resource management, survey)
October 1, 2004... Three years ago, most of Jim Damoulakis' clients wanted to discuss technology comparisons, such as which vendor had the better disk array or which switch was superior. As CTO of GlassHouse Technologies, a consulting firm and storage services...

IT organizations focus on compliance.(Compliance series: Part 2)
October 1, 2004... A recent survey conducted by the Forrester research firm suggests that technology decision-makers are paying significantly more attention to regulatory compliance today than they were a year ago. In the Forrester survey, 77% of respondents...

HDS takes aim at EMC, IBM: virtualization approach stirs debate.
October 1, 2004... Hitachi Data Systems' (HDS) recent unveiling of its Tagma-Store Universal Storage Platform (USP) disk arrays did more than just introduce the next generation of HDS's crossbar switch architecture. Judging from statements from competitors,...

In this issue ...(Editorial)(Editorial)
October 1, 2004... WE TAPPED A NUMBER of smart industry analysts this month to help us out with the wide range of topics covered in our features section. For example, the Enterprise Strategy Group's Nancy Hurley tackles the issue of where users want to (or...

Computer Associates recently issued three separate partner announcements with Microsoft, Network Appliance, and Acer.(Business Briefs)(Computer Associates International Inc)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Computer Associates recently issued three separate partner announcements with Microsoft, Network Appliance, and Acer. CA plans to provide support for Microsoft Data Protection Server (DPS), part of the Windows Server System, across its...

Serial ATA International Organization.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... At the recent Intel Developer Forum, 40 vendors announced the formation of the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO), the goal of which is to "sustain the quality, integrity, and dissemination of SATA technology." The board of...

Decru.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Decru announced certification of its DataFort storage security appliances with ADIC Scalar tape libraries and Pathlight VX disk-to-tape backup solutions.

Xtore and Bell Microproducts have a global distribution agreement in which Bell Microproducts will offer Xtore's family of direct-attached storage (DAS).(Business Briefs)(Xtore)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Xtore and Bell Microproducts have a global distribution agreement in which Bell Microproducts will offer Xtore's family of direct-attached storage (DAS), NAS, and SAN products through its reseller and VAR channels in the US, Europe, and Latin...

Avamar Technologies.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Avamar Technologies has secured $15 million in its largest round of financing to date. The round was led by a new investor, Morgan Stanley Venture Partners. Existing venture capital investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs,...

FalconStor Software announced its full support for the initiatives of Intel to deliver scalable NAS and SAN solutions for the SOHO (small office/home office) and SAN OEM market segments by customizing its IPStor software.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... FalconStor Software announced its full support for the initiatives of Intel to deliver scalable NAS and SAN solutions for the SOHO (small office/home office) and SAN OEM market segments by customizing its IPStor software, specifically for the...

Engenio Information Technologies will integrate Emulex's In-Speed switch-on-a-chip (SOC) technology.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Engenio Information Technologies will integrate Emulex's In-Speed switch-on-a-chip (SOC) technology into its new 2Gbps FC switched drive module.

GST has selected Certance as a supplier of its LTO tape technology solutions.(Business Briefs)(GST Inc.)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... GST has selected Certance as a supplier of its LTO tape technology solutions. Certance will provide GST with LTO Ultrium 1 and LTO Ultrium 2 tape technologies today and half-height second-generation and full-height third-generation LTO Ultrium...

Copan Systems.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Copan Systems has secured $25 million in Series B funding, bringing total financing to date to $39 million. Participating in this round are Pequot, Pinnacle Ventures, Austin Ventures, and Globespan Capital.

MaXXan Systems' MXVT intelligent switch, as well as its SG110T NAS gateway and SA100T disaster-recovery and virtualization storage systems, wase successfully tested under the IBM TotalStorage Proven program.(Business Briefs)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... MaXXan Systems' MXVT intelligent switch, as well as its SG110T NAS gateway and SA100T disaster-recovery and virtualization storage systems, wase successfully tested under the IBM TotalStorage Proven program. MaXXan's intelligent storage systems...

IBM lowers NAS-SAN gateway prices.(News Analysis + Trends)
October 1, 2004... IBM's recently introduced Total-Storage NAS Gateway 500 is a single-processor configuration designed for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and remote offices. The original NAS gateway, which was introduced in January, included two or...

EMC extends NAS family: adds iSCSI support.(News Analysis + Trends)(Network Attached Storage)
October 1, 2004... Building on the success of its Celerra line of NAS servers, EMC recently shipped low-end and midrange additions, as well as a new version of its DART operating environment that includes support for iSCSI and enhancements to the Celerra Manager...

Lower prices top FC HBA trends.(News Analysis + Trends)(host bus adapter)
October 1, 2004... It's not often that discernable trends occur in the host bus adapter (HBA) market, but a number of factors are driving developments that will come as good news to end users, particularly those at small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that...

Users adopt WAFS for WAN file transfers.(News Analysis + Trends)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... A number of companies have implemented a relatively new category of products that one consulting firm--the Taneja Group--refers to as wide area file services (WAFS) appliances, which significantly speed up file transfers over WANs. As...

Vendors rev up next-gen LTO drives: Certance expected to ship first.(News Analysis + Trends)
October 1, 2004... With the final Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Ultrium Generation 3 specification in hand, LTO technology partners Certance, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM this summer got the nod to begin testing their LTO-3 tape drives in preparation for shipment later this...

IBM (re)-enters iSCSI array market.(News Analysis + Trends)(International Business Machines Corp.)
October 1, 2004... In mid-2001, IBM became the first major disk subsystem vendor to introduce an iSCSI-based disk array. The 200i was subsequently pulled front the market, reportedly due to performance issues and lack of end-user interest in iSCSI. Last month...

Veritas acquisition adds e-mail archiving.(News Analysis + Trends)
October 1, 2004... Veritas' recent $225 million acquisition of UK-based KVS Inc. fills a hole in Veritas' e-mail archiving product line, say analysts. With the acquisition, Veritas acquires KVS's flagship Enterprise Vault software along with KVS's...

CA focuses on integration.(News Analysis + Trends)(Computer Associates)
October 1, 2004... In what the company billed as its most significant product introduction since the launch of its BrightStor platform in 2001, Computer Associates last month introduced 13 product updates and a new automation platform--BrightStor Process...

EMC strengthens channel relationships.(News Analysis + Trends)
October 1, 2004... EMC's new "EMC Select Program" signals a subtle but significant change in its relationship with resellers and other partners--a move that analysts say reflects CEO Joseph Tucci's vision of moving the company away from its direct sales,...

Intelligence in the fabric: myth or reality? Despite lack of adoption, an end-user survey shows that storage professionals would prefer to run applications in the fabric vs. hosts or disk arrays.(Special Report)
October 1, 2004... Although much discussion has centered on moving intelligent storage services into the fabric, there has been relatively little adoption of fabric-based services to date. The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) set out to determine the real reasons...

Storage consolidation strategies for Microsoft Exchange: there are a number of storage options for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to get a grip on burgeoning e-mail systems.
October 1, 2004... The Microsoft Exchange user community is in the midst of a mass migration, providing an opportunity for customers to re-evaluate their server and storage architectures. For example, a SearchWin2000 survey revealed that 78% of Exchange 5.5 users...

Network file management solves NAS problems: NFM solutions address file serving and NAS challenges such as file management, scalability, and utilization.(network attached storage)
October 1, 2004... The challenges of enterprise file services are well-known to virtually all storage managers, regardless of the size or sophistication of their environments. Ranging from departmental CIFS/NFS file servers up to enterprise NAS deployments,...

Disk-to-disk-to-tape vs. replication, part 1: an evaluation of various data-protection solutions shows that IT organizations should consider a combination of technologies.
October 1, 2004... Part one of this two-part series differentiates replication technologies and disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) technologies. When speaking to storage managers about D2D2T products, we're often asked, "Can't I just use the replication software that I...

Turning shared blocks into shared files: building a SAN for SMBs, part 4: Hewlett-Packard's NAS 9000 provides a NAS-SAN fusion that combines the best of both worlds.(LAB Review)(small to medium-sized business, storage area network)
October 1, 2004... WHAT DO YOU CALL A SERVER with dual Xeon processors, 4GB of RAM, dual load-balanced Gigabit Ethernet NICs, hardware-mirrored system drive array, hot-plug PCI-X backplane, remote hardware control over IP, not to mention fully redundant hot-swap...

What applications require higher-speed Fibre Channel? Some applications are constrained by today's 1Gbps/2Gbps Fibre Channel SANs, and 4Gbps, 8Gbps, or 10Gbps connections may be the answer.(Opinion)
October 1, 2004... "IF MY PETABYTES of storage and thousands of SAN ports don't saturate my 2Gbps Fibre Channel links, why do I need 4Gbps or, for that matter, 8Gbps or 10Gbps, Fibre Channel?" The above question is typically asked by SAN administrators who...

Highlights from storage networking world: SMI-S becomes an ANSI INCITS standard and is on its way to ISO standardization.(SNIA on Storage)
October 1, 2004... THIS WEEK'S STORAGE NETWORKING WORLD (SNW) Fall conference and exhibition (Oct. 25 to 28 in Orlando, FL) highlighted a number of storage trends and technologies of interest to end users, storage integrators, and vendors. A continuing...

Engenio mixes Fibre Channel, SATA.(Engenio Information Technologies, serial advanced technology attachment)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Enhances remote mirroring Engenio Information Technologies recently released the 9.1 version of its SANtricity Storage Manger software, which includes enhanced Remote Volume Mirror software and support for mixing Fibre Channel and Serial...

Xiotech enables tiered storage.(New Products)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Users are now able to mix Serial ATA (SATA) and two types of Fibre Channel disk drives ("Economy" and "Enterprise") in Xiotech's Magnitude 3D storage systems, to create a two- or three-tier storage architecture. Users can choose drives based on...

AMI combines NAS, iSCSI SAN.(New Products)(American Megatrends Inc.)(Network Attached Storage)(Storage Area Network)(internet SCSI)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... American Megatrends recently entered the iSCSI subsystem space with an appliance that can handle file-level NAS (CIFS, NFS, AFP, and NC) as well as block level SAN I/Os. The StorTrends iTX system is based on AMI's 2104 appliance, which supports...

JES ships COTS NAS system.(New Products)(JES Hardware Solutions Inc.)(commercial off-the-shelf National Airspace System )(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... JES Hardware Solutions is shipping a 23TB commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) NAS server that is based on Microsoft's Windows Storage Server 2003 platform. Designed for the US military, the system comes in a 42U rack and includes TCP/IP accelerator...

Infortrend supports SATA-II.(New Products)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... At the IBC show in Amsterdam last month, Infortrend introduced its EonStor A08UC2410 RAID subsystem, which is available in a convertible desktop or tower "Cube" form factor. It's Infortrend's first array to support SATA II (although it also...

NeuStream adds replication.(New Products)(NeuStream Inc)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Start-up NeuStream Inc. has enhanced the software available with its StorageBoss Appliance system. Share Management Suite V1.4 includes real-time data replication and high-availability clustering software. The replication software is based...

StorCase integrates 2.5-inch Savvio drives.(New Products)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... StorCase Technology's 10-bay, 1U InfoStation SCSI backplane enclosure is now available with Seagate's new 2.5-inch Savvio SFF (small form factor) Ultra320 SCSI disk drives. The system supports single or dual host connections. www.storcase.com.

CMS backs up desktops, laptops.(New Products)(CMS Products Inc.)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... CMS Products recently shipped the latest version of its ABSplus portable backup and restore product. Configured with a 2.5-inch, 100GB disk drive, the ABSplus is priced at $419, including tire company's BounceBack Professional software and...

Executive enhances disk defragger.(New Products)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... The 9.0 version of Executive Software's Diskeeper disk defragmentation software includes a number of new features, including an I/O SMART tool that intelligently monitors drive access during defragmentation to ensure top speed; a FRAG SHIELD...

BiTMICRO announces SSD iSCSI target.(New Products)(Bitmicro Networks)(solid-state disk)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... BiTMICRO Networks last month announced an iSCSI-based solid-state disk (SSD) target device. The flash-based E-Disk unit is available in Fibre Channel, Ultra320 SCSI, parallel ATA, or Serial ATA (SATA) versions. www.bitmicro.com.

Calendar.(New Products)(Calendar)
October 1, 2004... November 30--December 2 Gartner 23rd Annual Data Center Conference-Las Vegas, NV This year's event addresses the changing needs of attendees and covers the "hot topics" for the coming year. Five tracks include server, storage, IT...