Weekly compilation of storage news:Dell'Oro report shows Cisco creeping up on Brocade
According to The
Dell Oro Group's SAN market report on the second quarter
released yesterday, the storage switch market continues to be a
volatile one.
Brocade maintained dominance in market share, but
Cisco is steadily creeping up in certain areas. This represents
the third quarter in a row of such shifts in the market. "Three
quarters in a row, and you've got a trend," said Tam Dell'Oro,
founder and president of the Dell'Oro Group, to SearchStorage.com
at the time of the
last quarterly update from the analyst
firm.
Brocade's share of the overall SAN market in the first half of
calendar year 2007 was approximately 73%, as measured in SAN ports
sold. Brocade completed its acquisition of McData on January 29,
2007. Prior to the acquisition, in the second calendar half of
2006, Dell Oro estimates show that Brocade's overall share combined
with McData's overall share was also approximately 73%. Brocade
also retains dominance in the fixed fabric switch market, with 84%
market share, down 0.4% over the last year. But Cisco was shown to
have gained 3.6 points for the No. 1 position in modular switch
market share, and the company claims that it has seen 65%
year-over-year growth in modular revenues in a market that's grown
8.5%. Brocade also
recently reported that its sales at the high
end of the market have slowed due to customers waiting on the
new merged director based on its McData acquisition, which is
due out next year.
EMC acquires consulting firm, DR software IP
EMC announced the acquisition of New Jersey-based BusinessEdge
Solutions and the formation of a new information management
consulting practice within its Global Services division, which will
focus on Fortune 500 customers in targeted vertical markets
including financial services, life sciences and communications.
BusinessEdge reportedly has a "blue chip client list" for
consulting services on compliance and risk management, business
process analysis and improvement, and information management.
Financial terms of the deal, which EMC said will not have a
material impact on its business, were not disclosed.
Separately, EMC officials confirmed reports from Israel's
Globes today that it has purchased the IP of Illuminator, an
Israeli-based maker of application recovery software. An EMC
spokesperson said the assets will be used internally by EMC's
professional services organization "to more quickly and
cost-effectively assess the business recovery of applications."
Open source backup software adds Windows support
Open source backup startup Zmanda has announced a new client for
its Amanda Enterprise software that will now natively support
backups from Windows servers in addition to Linux. The software
uses Microsoft's Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to quiesce
applications before backing up open files or running databases.
Other additions to the software include role-based access control
for backup and recovery operations, and the incorporation of the
security-enhanced (SE) Linux kernel. Finally, Zmanda announced that
it is adding a new "premium" level of support for 24x7 service at a
fee of $375 per year for Linux clients and $450 for Windows.
Carbonite updates backup SaaS
Carbonite has announced Release 3.0 of its online PC backup
service, which includes more online help, new account management
pages, and a new file restore process that features a tab showing
progress, a recovery log displaying pending and recently restored
files, and the option to stop the restore process. Release 3.0 also
incorporates an adaptive bandwidth management system that can more
than double backup speeds, a customizable interface for marketing
partners, support for new languages and a simpler GUI. Carbonite
also announced plans to add Mac support later this fall.
Fire district picks NetApp StoreVault
NetApp announced that the Maricopa, Arizona, Fire District has
deployed its StoreVault S500 product to address file storage growth
after the district digitized functions such as fire ground command,
pre-fire planning, building inspection records, and personnel
records, causing its storage to grow from 250 gigabytes (GB) to 600
GB in 12 months. The district had been using DAS, which could take
up to 10 minutes to access data.
UK publisher archives with Autonomy Zantaz
Autonomy subsidiary Zantaz announced that Northcliffe Media, one of
the biggest regional newspaper publishers in the UK, has chosen the
Zantaz Enterprise Archive Solution (EAS) to consolidate its 17
email data centers into two, while migrating from Exchange 5.5 to
Exchange 2003.
Mendocino reports government wins
Mendocino Software today announced increasing sales in government
markets, both domestically and internationally, with its InfiniView
CDP software. Customers in government markets include U.S.-based
agencies such as the Department of Labor, Los Alamos National
Laboratory, National Institute of Health, and several Department of
Defense agencies.
Mimosa reports tripling of sales
Mimosa Systems announced that it has seen triple-digit customer
growth over the period from 1 August 2006 to 1 August 2007, citing
the increased focus in the industry on e-discovery.
Plasmon claims optical growth
Plasmon announced a 50% year-on-year growth in the company's
optical-media UDO Archive Appliance sales. Plasmon attributed the
increase in part to the resale of its product by GE Healthcare,
AGFA, IBM and Konica Minolta. Users include Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Plasmon also announced an evaluation
program for resellers that will allow them to receive trial units
of the appliance to use onsite for customer evaluations.
BlueArc, Index Engines team up for e-discovery
BlueArc and Index Engines announced a new partnership that will
allow Index Engines to extract and classify data from BlueArc's
Titan NAS systems. Index Engines is best known for its TE-200 Tape
Engine, which searches offline backup tapes; the company claims
that data extracted from disk and tape systems can be managed using
the same software console. BlueArc, meanwhile, has reported
traction in the e-discovery space; large legal service providers
among its customer references say they like the CIFS performance
they see from the Titan NAS head.
Powerfile adds Blu-ray optical discs
PowerFile announced the introduction of the Active Archive
Appliance (A3) Enterprise Edition, which incorporates Blu-ray discs
from Panasonic that increases density of the product by a factor of
six to 70 terabytes (TB) in a 42U rack enclosure. The base
configuration, with 10 TB of archive capacity and 2 TB of dynamic
cache, is available now through channel partners at an MSRP of
$41,900, with 10 TB expansion kits available at an MSRP of
$27,900.
Atto soups up iSCSI bridge
Atto Technology Inc. announced firmware Version 4.0 for its
iPBridge iSCSI bridge product line. The product adds iSCSI
connectivity to Fibre Channel (FC) or SCSI storage. New features
include a wizard for configuration, load balancing for data
transfers and redesigned product CDs.
StorServer, Compellent buddy up
Backup appliance maker StorServer and midrange SAN vendor
Compellent announced a new marketing partnership, as well as a
joint customer, the City of Arvada, Colorado.
Virtual Iron certifies LeftHand
Virtual Iron Software announced that it has certified LeftHand
Networks' iSCSI SAN software for use with its server virtualisation
software.
Storewiz changes name
Primary storage data reduction startup, Storewiz, has announced a
name change to Storwize. The new name will become effective on 1
October 2007.