In expanding its line-up of storage solutions for small
and medium businesses, IBM has enhanced its relationship with
Network Appliance (NetApp) by offering a new unified storage system
as well as expanded virtualisation interoperability and database
backup software.
The IBM System Storage N5600 appliance is the latest member of
IBM's N series storage family and is designed to allow a migration
path to the company's enterprise-class offerings, scaling to 252
terabytes of physical capacity. Two models are offered: The N5600
A10 is a single storage controller, while the N5600 A20 comes with
dual storage controllers.
IBM has also made available interoperability between N series
gateways and the IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller (SVC).
IBM's SVC is designed to provide block level virtualisation, to
help enable centralised management of managed storage resources and
non-disruptive migration. IBM claims that the result is SAN storage
access through a single IP portal without the high cost of Fibre
Channel host bus adapters and port attachment fees.
“A key objective of IBM’s relationship with NetApp is to expand
IBM's storage solutions for our business clients,” says Bob
Mahoney, business line executive N series, IBM System Storage. “We
listened to our customers who told us that easy scalability,
virtualisation, resource optimisation and database interoperability
are all at the top of their wish lists.”
