Microsoft has improved its Nas, fibre channel and iSCSI
support.
Exchange Server 2003 files and data will soon be able to be
consolidated onto Windows-powered storage devices, such as Nas
boxes.
A feature pack has been released to manufacturing and will be
available from Nas suppliers in the coming months.
"Customers tell us they are looking for ways to improve the
efficiency of their IT infrastructure through networked storage on
the Windows platform," said Zane Adam, director of product
management and marketing for storage at Microsoft.
Microsoft said it aims to, "reduce storage costs with
consolidated, simplified management of Exchange Server data on
Windows Storage Server", and claimed it will help make Sans "more
manageable and cost-effective".
When used as a host to a fibre channel San, Windows Server
2003's latest fibre channel information tool will be able to gather
component San information, providing configuration data needed to
troubleshoot multi-supplier environments.
The tool will be available for download free of charge next
month.
Storage tracing support within Windows Server 2003 will
also consolidate the various tracing and logging mechanisms used by
storage drivers on Sans. It will be available as part of Service
Pack 1 for Windows Server 2003.
Adaptec, Emulex, Intel, LSI Logic and QLogic have committed to
support this capability in their drivers.
Microsoft's iSCSI architecture will now be supported with
Windows Server 2003 Datacentre Edition.
Native iSCSI support is also provided for Microsoft Multipath
I/O. Support has been improved for multi-path failover and load
balancing between the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator and iSCSI
targets.
Native Microsoft MPIO support will be included in Microsoft
iSCSI Software Initiator version 2.0, available at the end of
2004.
The aim is that Windows servers will interoperate better with
Windows-powered Nas and Microsoft iSCSI targets than Unix
servers.
Chris Mellor writes for Techworld.com