Weekly compilation of storage news:IBM announces 'bulletproofed' midrange arrays
IBM announced the System Storage DS4700 Express Models 70-DC and
72-DC, which are compliant with the Network Equipment Building
System (NEBS) Level 3 "hardening" requirements originally designed
for the telecommunications industry. Products can be either NEBS
certified or NEBS compliant, the distinction being that the former
have been submitted to an independent lab for formal testing and
the latter have not. NEBS certification/compliance comes in three
levels, with Level 3 matching "carrier class" failover, hardening
and service level requirements for critical systems within the
telecom industry.
According to Mike Karp, senior analyst, Enterprise Management
Associates and formerly an NEBS consultant, the distinction between
NEBS-compliant technology and traditional high-availability
features, such as redundant power supplies and fans, is a
"hardened" outer casing and other materials used in its manufacture
which allow it to operate at extremes of temperature, dust and
other external hazards. "NEBS is about resisting external
influences, like earthquakes and other natural disasters," Karp
said.
The new DS4700 Express, Models 70-DC and 72-DC, and the EXP810
expansion unit, will feature built-in support for DC power and will
be compliant not only with the NEBS Level 3 standard for U.S.
clients, but also with the European Telecommunications Standards
Institute. The 70-DC, which features 2 GB cache and four host
ports, starts at $26,045 with an included battery pack. Without the
battery pack, the device starts at $19,499. The 72-DC, with 4 GB
cache and eight host ports, starts at $51,995 with the battery, and
$44,250 without. EMC Corp. said its Clariion arrays have been NEBS
Level 3 certified since 2003; Sun Microsystems Inc.'s StorageTek
3510 and 3511 arrays are currently NEBS 3 compliant and Sun said it
was working on NEBS/DC versions of its new Modular line;
Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Hitachi Data Systems currently do not have
NEBS certification and compliance with storage, but HP does have
NEBS-compliant servers.
HP slots in new services chief
On Monday, HP was reeling from the "unexpected" departure of
former services chief Steve Smith. On Wednesday, it named the vice
president of its consulting division, John McCain, as the new head
of its $15.5 billion global services business. Smith had led HP
services since July of 2005 and had been with the company since
January of that year.
Services revenue only increased by 1% in HP's third fiscal
quarter compared with last year, although profit increased by more
than 40%. Earlier this month, Todd DeLaughter, the former head of
HP's $1 billion OpenView software business, resigned from the
company to become chief executive of Canadian business software
company Opalis.
EMC has also seen a
shakeup in executives in the last month,
which it attributed to turnover following acquisitions. HP
recently closed the acquisition of application monitoring
company Mercury Interactive and announced Mercury's IP will be
integrated into both software and services within HP in a new
organisation called business technology optimisation (BTO).
Vendors ride VMware wave at conference
Several vendors in the storage industry made announcements this
week to coincide with the VMWorld conference in Los Angeles. Emulex
Corp. announced the availability of its LightPulse virtual host bus
adapter (HBA), which allows users to split the physical HBA into
logical partitions to prevent "confusion" with multiple virtual
servers on the same physical host. Vizioncore announced esxCharter
2.0, which provides storage bill-back to business units that use
virtual machines. SteelEye Technology Inc. premiered Version 6 of
both its LifeKeeper Protection Suite for Windows and SteelEye Data
Replication, both of which will now support virtual environments,
as well as 64-bit operating systems and Exchange 2007. EqualLogic
Inc. announced that Babson College is using VMware with its PS
Series storage; Xiotech Corp. announced that its Magnitude 3D 3000
storage system has received VMware ESX Server 3.0
certification.
Storewiz unveils worldwide channel partner program
Compression startup Storewiz Inc. unveiled its Vanguard channel
partner program, which will allow value added resellers (VAR) to
sell and support the company's STN-5000 compression product.
Compression and deduplication are hot topics in the storage market
lately. Storewiz has shipped over 120 units in the year since the
company was launched, while data dedupe software company Avamar was
snapped up by EMC last week for $165 million. Storewiz has already
signed Comparex, Unique Digital and Asaiki Technology as
partners.
Dell to resell ProStor removable hard drive
Dell Inc. announced its new PowerVault RD1000 removable hard drive,
a cartridge-based backup system, which is a rebranding of ProStor
Systems Inc.'s RDX hardware cartridge and Yosemite's backup
software. Imation, Exabyte and Tandberg Data have original
equipment manufacturer (OEM) deals for similar products with
ProStor.
Paris Public Transport installs Atempo Exchange
backup
Atempo Inc. announced that the Paris Public Transportation
Department (RATP) is using its Time Navigator software to back up
45 terabytes (TB) of data on the buses, tramways, metro and
regional trains it operates. RATP has been using Time Navigator as
its data protection platform since 1994. Its most recent
installation of Time Navigator extends back up support for 20,720
Microsoft Exchange mailboxes with a volume of 15 TB per day stored
on 400 servers running Unix, Linux and Windows.
Reldata updates gateway
Reldata Inc. announced a new version of its Reldata IP Storage
Gateway 9400 IP SAN/NAS gateway. New highlights of the IP 9400 are
dual 4 Gbps Fibre Channel ports, robust multipath and failover, and
the ability to resize volumes and file systems on the fly.
Caringo unveils CAStor file system gateway
Content addressed storage (CAS) startup Caringo Inc. announced the
CAStor File System Gateway (FSG), which allows access to its
back-end fixed-content repository through standard CIFS and network
file system (NFS) interfaces.
Mendocino update allows multiple views
Mendocino Software announced the release of InfiniView, a new
product architecture that splits the data capture engine from
point-in-time views of continuous data protection (CDP) data, which
will allow users to create and use multiple "virtual views" of
production data. Users have the option to either maintain both
engines on a single appliance or to scale up, as needed, on either
the number of front-end or back-end appliances necessary to meet
more frequent needs for either data capture or data viewing and
presentation. Mendocino is also coming out with a new module for
Exchange that filters mailbox data onto a blade appliance.
Quantum attributes revenue jump to ADIC acquisition
Quantum Corp. announced that revenue for its fiscal second quarter
that ended Sept. 30, 2006, was $250 million, a 23% increase over
the same quarter last year, "largely due to the inclusion of sales
resulting from the acquisition of Advanced Digital Information
Corp. (ADIC)," according to a press release. Quantum still reported
a net loss of $30.7 million, including $14.7 million of in-process
research and development expenses resulting from the ADIC
acquisition, $9.6 million in amortisation of acquisition-related
intangibles, $6.7 million in restructuring charges, $2.2 million in
stock-based compensation charges and $2 million related to a
one-time, purchase accounting adjustment in inventory.
Seattle's Sound Transit uses Silver Peak
Silver Peak Systems Inc. announced that Sound Transit has deployed
its NX Series appliances to speed up wide area network (WAN)
networking between distributed employees, contractors and
consultants, as well as VoIP. Sound Transit plans, builds and
operates regional transit systems and services for Central Puget
Sound in Washington and has hundreds of employees scattered over
the state.
Fortiva adds features to email archiving service
Email archiving managed service provider Fortiva Inc. announced the
addition of new features to its outsourced archiving product:
Continuous Data Validation (CDV), which scans every message in the
archive for errors once a month; message audit trails; a new setup
wizard that reduces setup time from hours to minutes; and remote
monitoring and maintenance of the customer's onsite appliance.