Weekly compilation of storage news:IDC: VTL market to reach $1.4B by 2011
IDC reported this week that the worldwide virtual tape library
(VTL) market will double in value over the next five years,
reaching $1.4 billion by 2011. Total VTL system terabytes (TB)
shipped will increase rapidly from 99,325 TB in 2006 to 690,082 TB
in 2011, a compound annual growth rate of 47.4%. Open system VTL
products will drive market growth and eclipse enterprise mainframe
VTL market value in the year ahead, the report said. Companies
included in the report were: Copan, EMC, Fujitsu-Siemens, HP, IBM,
Network Appliance, Overland Storage, Quantum (combined with ADIC),
Sepaton and Sun.
Adaptec offers cheap iSCSI target software
Adaptec Inc. announced software, dubbed OnTarget, which turns
industry-standard servers into an IP storage system for small
businesses. It supports direct attached storage (DAS) and storage
area networks (SAN) from the same box, as well as SCSI and SATA
drives. Systems integrators, including Izon and Variel have already
signed up as resellers.
BlueArc staves off NetApp infringement claims
BlueArc Corp. has won its patent battle against Network Appliance
Inc. (NetApp), which claimed the startup infringed on three NetApp
patents. This week the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in
Washington, D.C., affirmed a decision by U.S. District Judge
Marilyn Patel that the patents were invalid.
NetApp purchased Auspex, a bankrupt NAS vendor, for $9 million
in 2003, with what appears to be the intention of asserting
Auspex's patent portfolio against other file server companies,
according to BlueArc. NetApp, represented by Henry Bunsow from
Howrey, filed for patent infringement two weeks after it bought the
defunct file server firm.
Had an injunction been issued in the case, it would have
effectively shut down BlueArc's operation. Judge Patel dismissed
the case and determined the patents invalid in July 2005. NetApp
hired Matt Powers from Weil Gotshal to take up the appeal. After
oral arguments, the Court of Appeals dismissed the case without a
written opinion. NetApp declined to comment on the result.
Siafu launches cheap tape encryption
Siafu Software LLC, a provider of low-cost encrypted iSCSI systems
has announced Siafu Sypher encryption appliances, a series of SAN
appliances that securely compress data and encrypt tapes destined
for offsite locations. The Sypher inline appliance costs $6,995 and
is a handy little box for "people that want to encrypt tapes but
not spend $40,000," said Siafu founder John Mates.
SNIA takes on software development
The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) said that it
plans to increase its charter to include software development
projects. Current projects underway that will receive renewed
support include SMI-S; eXtensible Access Method (XAM) and the
Common Information Model (CIM) protocol tester.
Ravens hire AmeriVault
The Baltimore Ravens have signed a new player to defend its data.
Challenged by time-consuming and resource-intensive tape backup,
the team has devised a new game plan for data
protection-disk-to-disk online backup. To achieve this, the Ravens
selected online backup by AmeriVault Corp., a provider of online
data backup, offsite storage and recovery services.
Imation introduces rugged storage suitcase
Imation Corp. has introduced a storage case specifically designed
to protect high-capacity data storage tapes during transportation.
Rugged and ultra durable, the Imation DataGuard Transport and
Storage Case has been tested to outperform other leading storage
cases, with two-to four-times the shock protection of other cases,
the company claimed.