Here's a handy guide to some of the hot new products at Storage
Networking World (SNW) taking place at the Manchester Grand Hyatt
in San Diego this week. Stay tuned to these pages for updates on
what's going on at the show.
Also, keep an eye on our
blog for rumours and chatter from the show, and
if you're at the event, feel free to post your comments on anything
interesting you learn.
Hewlett-Packard (HP) is announcing StorageEssentials
Standard Edition, a scaled-back version of its storage resource
management (SRM) tool priced at $37,000 and bundles together basic
modules that otherwise have to be pieced together separately. The
company said it created the new edition to make it easier for VARs
and resellers in its small and midsized business (SMB) channel to
sell to midsized companies and also, for attachment of the software
to HP EVA sales by its direct salesforce. Standard Edition also
bundles StorageEssentials with HP's Systems Insight Manager (SIM)
server management software. It's the first product out of the newly
integrated Enterprise Storage and Servers group at HP.
One potential sticking point for users with heterogeneous
environments is that Standard Edition will only support the
management of HP storage, in contrast to the Enterprise Edition,
which is built on the SMI-S standard for heterogeneous support.
(Enterprise Edition packages begin at around $50,000). The cynical
may conclude that on the heels of HP's well-publicised worries
about its storage bottom line of late, the StorageEssentials
product has been restricted in order to drive HP storage hardware
sales. However, according to Bob Laliberte, analyst with the
Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), there are questions about true
heterogeneous support with SMI-S anyway. "It's not HP's fault,"
Laliberte said. "The SMI-S standard is still just not where it
needs to be to really practically manage heterogeneous storage
environments."
However, Ash Ashutosh, chief technologist for HP StorageWorks,
called that take "a conspiracy theory. We put together this package
because our resellers were having trouble deploying the software
with other vendors' systems," he said. "They don't have the
training on other vendors' systems and so would fumble when it came
time to do the installation. Meanwhile, most customers in this
space are happy just to get HP [storage] up and running."
Speaking of bundling midrange products, IBM is announcing
that its DS3200 and DS3400 Express products for SMBs can now be
bought in prepackaged configurations, including components, such as
controllers, HBAs and cables, which users previously had to
purchase separately and assemble themselves. Disk drives must still
be purchased separately for the systems. IBM said the new packages
are up to 20% less expensive than purchasing the parts
separately.
Intel has updated its white-box storage server to include
the company's new quad-core processor. Storage Server SSR212MC2,
which stands for Storage Server, rack, 2U, 12 drive, McKay Creek
(internal code name) 2, for dual processor and is a typically
uninspiring alphanumeric product name from Intel. But that aside,
it's a multipurpose rack-mount server that can be configured as
direct attached storage (DAS), network attached storage (NAS), a
storage area network (SAN) or as an application server. It supports
SAS and SATA drives, has connectivity options for 10 Gigabit
Ethernet (GigE), Fibre Channel (FC) and InfiniBand, and comes with
or without RAID controllers. Several software companies are
bundling a storage stack for it, including Microsoft (Windows
Storage Server and Windows Unified Server), FalconStor, Open-E,
Open SUSE, RedHat and Wasabi Systems. The SSR212MC2 will cost
$2,800 with no RAID controller and $3,600 with the Intel SRCSAS144e
RAID controller, and will be available from Intel channel partners
in May.
Intel's fellow chipmaker PMC-Sierra is planning to issue
a new controller based on SAS 2.0, which allows for 6 Gbps line
speeds, longer cable lengths (10 meters as opposed to three), as
well as support for multiplexing features that could finally make
SAS
ready for prime time in enterprise arrays.
Symantec will take the wraps off Backup Exec System
Recovery 7.0, the latest version of its Windows bare-metal restore
system recovery software. This release speeds up the recovery of
Windows systems in minutes, rather than hours or days, the company
claims, and adds support for Microsoft Vista, x64-bit platforms,
VMware ESX Server, and Microsoft Virtual Server. Its a standalone
product for Windows servers and may be purchased and installed
separately, or together with Backup Exec.
Plasmon will announce the addition of UDO-2 optical
drives in its archiving box, as well as new software called
Enterprise Active Archive, which will manage multiple instances of
its UDO Archive Appliance across multiple sites in one console.
Clustered NAS and file virtualisation
Isilon is announcing blue chip customers for its
clustered NAS products in the broadcasting space. NBC Olympics will
be using Isilon's IQ products for its coverage of the 2008 games in
Beijing. Representatives for NBC and another newly announced Isilon
customer, XM Satellite Radio, will be presenting keynote addresses
at the SNW general sessions on Wednesday morning. Discovery
Communications (the company behind the Discovery Channel and its
affiliates) will also be announced as an Isilon user this week.
ONStor is unveiling global namespace software for its
Bobcat and Pantera NAS clusters and gateways. The global namespace
product can perform policy-based replication, failover and tiered
storage replication on multiple OnStor clusters and Windows file
servers. Linux and Unix support will follow later this year.
Attune will announce that Virginia-based architectural
firm Lessard Group has deployed its heterogeneous file
virtualisation software. Verari is adding two more disks to
each blade in its VB5150 clustered NAS systems, as well as
additional external SAS channels, which will allow the 5150 to
scale to 576 terabytes (TB), nearly double the previous limit of
320 TB. Fujitsu and EqualLogic, meanwhile, have
partnered with Network Appliance (NetApp) and Advanced Media
Services (AMS) Storage, respectively, to add NAS gateways to their
block-based products. Fujitsu will bundle NetApp's V-Series
gateways with its Eternus 4000 and 8000 subsystems. AMS's Windows
Server R2-based gateway will be bundled with EqualLogic PS Series
SANs.
Tape products and encryption appliances
Overland Storage is beefing up its low-end ARCvault tape
library with the introduction of the ARCvault 48, which will now
support up to 48 LTO cartridges, or up to 38 TB in its 4U
enclosure. The new library will also support partitioning of the
library into segments of one, two or 12 slots.
Arkeia is announcing EdgeFort, an appliance that will
allow backup administrators to remotely manage backup operations at
remote sites without sending data back to headquarters over the
WAN.
Bocada is releasing version 5.0 of its data protection
monitoring (DPM) product, which includes new support for reporting
based on applications and media status trends. The software has
also been rearchitected to support modular development of reports
for specific applications not supported by default.
Siafu Software will be announcing a new entry-level,
iSCSI storage appliance, -priced at $3,995. The Swarm 100 Series of
IP SAN appliance supports Microsoft SMB/CIFS, NFS and iSCSI storage
protocols, and includes asynchronous replication and 256-bit
encryption. The appliance is available in a 1U configuration with
storage capacities ranging from 1 TB to 3 TB raw.
At the other end of the encryption scale, Crossroads
Systems will unveil its TapeSentry encryption appliance, a
4-port, 4 Gbit Fibre Channel device for $25,500. It provides
compression and encryption to all stored data and offers more
flexibility than the existing encryption appliances, Crossroads
claims. With its background in routing, Crossroads said its device
enables "any port to any port" communication for high-availability
environments, negating the need for an encryption appliance per
drive as with other offerings. The company is working with
Eruces for the key management piece of the solution.
VMware support
StorServer will announce its StorServer VCB Appliance, a
backup appliance to protect VMware environments. It uses VMware
Consolidated Backup to centralise the backup of ESX servers on the
StorServer, eliminating the need to have individual backup agents
on each virtual and/or host machine. Pricing for the StorServer VCB
Appliance starts at $20,000.
10 GigE and iSCSI
For some zippy iSCSI action check out iStor Networks and
Neterion demonstrating an iSCSI storage system operating at
line rate 10 Gbps speeds using a Neterion V-NIC 10 GigE adaptor and
iStor 10 GigE storage controller.
BlueArc is announcing the latest addition to its Titan
NAS product line. The new 2500 model, which joins the 2100 and 2200
models, includes a new dual 10 Gbit network module.
Partnerships, product demos and industry groups
The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) will
be trying to drum up support for the XAM by creating a partner
program for specialised application vendors, such as electronic
medical records companies, to port its software to the XAM
standard.
WysDM will be announcing that Double-Take is preparing to
OEM its DPM software with its replication products.
ATTO will be demonstrating a new SAS/SATA controller and
FalconStor will be touting its joint virtual tape library (VTL)
product with Sun on the show floor