Storage vendors polish their wares at SNW, page 2

Dot Hill Systems Corp. will incorporate SAS-SATA tunneling IP acquired in 2004 with Chaparral Network Storage Inc. in its new 2000 series RAID arrays. The 2730 product will include 4 Gbps Fibre Channel (FC) and two host connections in each controller, support either SAS or SATA drives in its 12-drive enclosure and include support for AssureSnap software, which creates mountable, writeable point-in-time copies. Support for RAID-6 will be added as a field upgrade to the array's firmware in the second quarter of 2007.

Verari Systems Inc., whose main business is blade servers, will jump into the clustered NAS space via an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) deal with PolyServe. The new product, dubbed the VB5150, includes a subsystem with up to 360 TB capacity per enclosure and up to three subsystems can be clustered together for 2 petabytes (PB) of capacity within one file system. A 20 TB base configuration of the VB5150 will cost $21,314.

Coming to a major systems vendor near you -- enhancements to SATA drives that will make them work better within FC and SAS enterprise systems -- this according to chipmaker SiliconStor Inc., which will announce a new chip that adds another access port to SATA drives, performs health diagnostics on SATA drives within the subsystem and amplifies SATA signals. The chip, according to vice president (VP) of marketing Joel Warford, will be incorporated into systems due out in 2007 from major OEMs, including Dot Hill, Engenio Information Technologies Inc. and Xyratex.

Plasmon Inc. is announcing a new version of the management software for its ultra density optical (UDO) archiving appliance, which will allow users to provision the underlying optical disks into separate archives for multiple applications, such as email and compliance archiving in one box. Previously, each optical subsystem from Plasmon had to be dedicated to archiving for a single application. Plasmon is also announcing a new partnership with Arkivio Inc. for file system archiving. The Plasmon appliance is bundled by IBM with its 3996 email archiving product.

Spectra Logic Corp. enters the NAS market with the Spectra D500 network storage appliance. The D500 integrates a customized RAID-protected disk array, a server, a NAS head and an integrated network interface. Storage managers can use the Spectra D500 as an NFS/CIFS disk-based cache for nearline storage before archiving to tape, the company said.

Managed services an SNW theme

Ciena Corp. has a new Data Migration Managed Service (DMMS) in the works, which will allow users to temporarily relocate data to Ciena's data centers in the event of seasonal traffic spikes or during infrastructure updates. The service works through Ciena's CN2000 Storage Extension wide are network (WAN) optimization product and includes rental of that product, as well as consulting services. AT&T is rebranding the service, as well as the CN2000 as the basis for its Worldnet Service Connection offering.

Network Appliance Inc. (NetApp) encryption subsidiary Decru Inc. will also be offering a service to include a starter kit and a twp-to-four hour replacement parts service level agreement (SLA), as well as a menu of optional services, including planning, implementation and employee training for its DataFort encryption product.

Aptare Inc. plans to preview version 6.0 of its StorageConsole backup reporting software, available Nov. 17. Verion 6.0 will include support for EMC's Legato NetWorker 7.2 and 7.3, and Veritas' Backup Exec versions 9.1 and 10.0. The product, a Web-based portal, is rebranded HiCommand Backup Services Manager by Hitachi Data Systems Inc. (HDS) and is the basis for GlassHouse Technologies Inc.'s outsourced backup monitoring managed service.

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