Storage Radio: Symantec CEO switch, Proximal Data releases AutoCache

After three years leading the company, Symantec replaced CEO Enrique Salem with chairman Stephen Bennett earlier this week.

And now the newly minted leader promises a "listening tour" with customers, partners and others before embarking on a new strategy for Symantec.

What will the change mean for Symantec customers and the backup storage space? In our latest Storage Radio podcast, join SearchStorage.com’s executive editor Ellen O’Brien and senior news editor Dave Raffo as they discuss the future of Symantec.

Plus, follow along as we highlight some of the best stories this week from our sites and from around the Web with associate editor John Hilliard, including:

Texas Memory Systems announced a new upgrade that will allow users of its PCIe RamSan cards to boot operating systems from the cards.

According to the company, the new feature allows system administrators using the upgraded cards to save money by deploying servers without needing disk drives or supporting hardware.

The firmware upgrade is free for owners of the company's RamSan-70 and RamSan-80 flash cards, and the upgrade will be included with future products.

And in other flash card vendor news, Proximal Data unveiled AutoCache, its new solid-state caching software that the company said can boost performance of heavily virtualized server environments.

Solid-state caching technology improves server performance by moving frequently accessed data to flash cards or solid-state drives.

Proximal said AutoCache stands out because it can tie into VMware's ESXi hypervisors. This allows AutoCache to monitor hypervisors, and move any hot data blocks over to the solid-state cache. AutoCache also supports VMware data movement features.

And tech site Ars Technica reports this week that Google paid a total of $12.4 billion for Motorola last May, citing data on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That includes $5.5 billion for the telecom pioneer's patents, $2.6 billion for goodwill, money for what Google called "customer relationships," as well as other assets reported to the SEC.

Google purchased Motorola for its patents to help shore up its Android operating system for mobile devices.