Business News Holding

Category: storage

  • Panasas Announces the World's Highest-Performance File Storage System

    Panasas intoroduced the ActiveStor Series 9 parallel storage system, which is believed to be the highest-performance file storage system in the world, as the company claims.

    "This is an exciting performance breakthrough for our industry," said Randy Strahan, CEO of Panasas.

    The new company’s system achieves its unprecedented performance by using multiple storage technologies via a synchronized architecture combining three tiers of storage — cache, SSD, and SATA — on each blade.

    It utilizes the Intel® X25-E Extreme SATA SSD for meta-data operations and smaller user files. Larger files are handled by cost-effective, large-capacity SATA disk drives.

    Unlike single-dimensional storage solutions, which offer either high-bandwidth performance or optimized IOPS, the ActiveStor uses multiple storage technologies in a synchronized architecture to produce both.

    A single 42U rack configured with the new Series 9 system is capable of delivering an estimated 80,000 NFS operations per second, as well as 6 gigabytes per second of throughput. Additional performace can be gained in a linear fashion simply by adding additional Panasas shelves or racks to a configuration.

    This unique "no compromise" combination of performance and expandability allows Panasas to deliver industry-leading throughput, as well as IOPs performance as much as 80 percent higher than most competitive storage systems. In addition, the new Panasas system can achieve these results with fewer disk drives than others, the company claims.

    According to Strahan, this new system expands Panasas’ ability to help customers save money across their storage infrastructure by increasing their ability to consolidate a wider variety of applications and workloads in a single storage architecture, including high-performance clustered applications, single-client applications, and technical and commercial applications running NFS and CIFS file protocols.

    "Panasas has now upped the ante in terms of performance relative to footprint and is allowing customers to reduce management costs and increase productivity by consolidating on a single platform," said Terri McClure, senior analyst at analyst firm Enterprise Strategy Group.

    "Inadequate performance of storage is a major inhibitor of the compute environment to perform with enough speed to support the data intensive problems companies are required to solve today."

  • Barracuda Launches Integrated Local and Cloud-based Backup Solution in Europe


    Barracuda Networks announced the European launch of its Barracuda Backup Service, a local and cloud-based data backup and disaster recovery solution.

    It combines the Barracuda Backup Server for restoration on the local network with the Barracuda Backup Service, a cloud-based backup service hosted by two data centres in Europe.

    This new service provides a SME/SMB data backup solution from a single vendor, can back up data directly from nearly all operating systems and comes included with backup software to natively provide application backups of Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server and Windows System State.

    The company claims they had designed an advanced data de-duplication technology: their backup service reduces the storage and transfer requirements for backups by analyzing each file at the bit level and only copying, transferring and archiving new bit sequences. This technology is applied within a single file’s revision history as well as across the entire backup volume.

    “Customers in Europe, particularly those in the midmarket, have trended toward on-site solutions for data backup and recovery primarily due to security and privacy concerns,” said Carla Arend, program manager, IDC European Storage Software and Services Research.

    “Barracuda Networks’ approach in combining a server on site for fast restore of data locally as well as replicating data offsite should serve this market, as well as larger enterprise customers, very well because it has a very reasonable pricepoint and is backed by strong security for data protection.”

    According to Michael Hughes, Barracuda vice president of channels, their backup service offers Europe’s SMBs and SMEs access to enterprise-class data protection and disaster recovery at a “fraction of the traditional cost.”

    “Simple to use and occupying up to 1/50th of the normal backup storage footprint, customers are welcoming the Barracuda Backup Service for its convenience as much as for its exceptional value,” he said.

    Barracuda Backup Server pricing starts at £899 depending on model and Barracuda Backup Service plans start at £59 for 100GB of storage per month.

  • IBM Delivers First Integrated Solid State Drive Support

    IBM announced that its storage virtualization offering, the IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller (SVC), “is now faster, more scalable, and delivers the industry’s first integrated Solid State Drive support.”

    SVC is a storage virtualization system that complements server virtualization technologies and enables a single point of control for storage resources (both IBM and non-IBM arrays) to support “improved business application availability, better IT infrastructure flexibility, and greater resource utilization.”

    Building on IBM’s Quicksilver technology, IBM is introducing SVC 5.0, which now supports Solid State Drives (SSDs).

    The tight integration of SSDs with SVC enables to take advantage of the high throughput capabilities of solid state by delivering up to 800,000 operations per second, and with response times of approximately one millisecond, nearly one-tenth of traditional disk storage.

    SVC support of SSDs is highly flexible with a minimum configuration of only one SSD, helping make the technology more affordable yet scalable without disruption to enterprise requirements, as the company claims.

    According to IBM, additional enhancements to SVC include 8Gbps Fibre Channel support, enabling higher throughout across Storage Area Networks, a tripling of the maximum cache to 24GB per engine, and support for consolidated DR configurations, enhancing SVCs business continuity capabilities.

    SVC also supports attachment to servers using iSCSI protocols over IP networks, which can help reduce costs and simplify server configuration.

    SAN Volume Controller 5.0 will be available November 6, with a US starting list price of $40,000.

  • New Book From Oracle Guru: "Oracle Performance Tuning With Solid State Disk"

    Dramatic decreases in the cost of Solid State Disk (SSD) over the past five years are changing Oracle architectures. Deploying SSD in place of hard disk drives can result in immediate performance gains as both Random Access Memory (RAM) and Flash SSD eliminate bottlenecks caused by mechanical hard disk I/O latency.

    The increasing popularity of SSD is challenging DBAs to adapt their database performance tuning methodologies in order to optimize application performance and return on investment.

    The book from Mike Ault shows how to accelerate Oracle databases and target solid state disk for maximum benefit, as Rampant Press, the publisher, says.

    “Solid State Disk is changing the game for Oracle databases, and how we think about performance tuning,” said Ault.

    “Whereas in the past a poorly-designed database might take six months and $500,000 in consulting costs to repair, simply installing SSD can mean the database immediately runs more than ten times faster for a fraction of the cost of repairing the source code. We wrote the book specifically for DBAs so that they could easily understand the benefits and limitations of SSD in their specific circumstances, and have all the tools they need to benchmark effectively. Any DBA who wants to keep their performance tuning skills relevant will read this book.”

    According to the publisher, Oracle Performance Tuning With Solid State Disk provides a comprehensive guide that enables DBAs to make the transition to SSD successfully and with confidence. By accelerating Oracle databases, applications can handle more transactions, more concurrent users and deliver higher profits and productivity gains.

    “It is a clear and definitive guide for converting existing systems from hard disk to SSD technology and empowers DBAs to make the logical choice of how and when to use SSD. The book provides an in-depth examination of testing methodologies, with clear examples, that DBAs can use to effectively benchmark and improve their own specific databases,” says Rampant Press.

    Mike Ault is an Oracle expert and a prolific author, who has published more than twenty Oracle-related books. He was an Oracle database specialist at Quest Software and has has five Oracle Masters Certificates more than 17 years of experience as an Oracle DBA and consultant.

    He is Oracle guru in residence at Texas Memory Systems, where he oversees Texas Memory Systems’ sponsorship of StatspackAnalyzer.com, a free tool that is popular in the Oracle community.

    As a special introductory promotion, Texas Memory Systems will be giving away a limited number of free copies to visitors to its booth at Oracle Open World 2009 from October 12th through 15th.

  • Buffalo First to Ship USB 3.0 HDD

    After announcing the first to market SuperSpeed USB 3.0 External Hard Disk Drive one week ago, Buffalo now gives the details on availability and prices.

    The DriveStation HD-HXU3, offers SuperSpeed transfer speeds of up to 125MB/s, which is 3-4 times faster than the company’s currently available USB 2.0 drive, and comes in a ranges of sizes, including 500 GB, 1TB and 1.5 TB. 2TB model is planned for later release.

    The HD-HXU3 will be also the first actually usable USB 3.0 HDD to the market, as it will come together with 2-port PCI Expressx1 host controller, which fully supports USB 3.0 connectivity.

    The new Buffalo’s DriveStation is backwards-compatible and will work with all USB 2.0 enabled computers and notebooks, as well as forthcoming USB 3.0 models.

    The drive will hit Japanese shelves in late October for about $225 for 1TB and $284 for 1,5 TB drive. 2TB disk, coming later this year, will cost about $523.

    The first, but still unusable USB 3.0 cables have gone on sale over at USBfever in April. Two weeks ago Freecom announced it would ship USB 3.0 hard drives, the XS 3.0, in mid-November.

  • Channel Data Releases New REO Business Continuity Appliance

    Channel Data has released the REO Business Continuity Appliance (BCA) from its principal, Overland Storage. An ‘all-in-one’ business continuity solution, the REO BCA is designed for both continuous local backup and remote disaster recovery applications.

    It is positioned as a flexible data replication solution, enabling automated recovery of mission-critical data and applications at both the local data centre and remote disaster recovery levels.

    Kevin Falconer, general manager of Channel Data, says in the past organisations relied on traditional backups/snapshots as the basis for their data protection. "This approach alone is inadequate and susceptible to data loss that can occur between backups. The BCA is designed to ensure that mission-critical data and applications are always protected.”

    "Whether you are concerned about email, key business applications such as ERP, databases, or unstructured files, BCA provides both local and remote high-performance continuous data protection based on capacity-optimised replication technology coupled with comprehensive application awareness," says Falconer.

    The BCA enables ‘point in time’ restoration as well as event-based restorations to be undertaken. For example, it allows users to tag ‘event’ bookmarks and use them for fast recovery and failover point selection.

    “Unlike solutions which simply time-stamp each block to enable restoration to a given point of time, BCA understands the application state, allowing for application consistent restorations,” says the manager of Channel Data.

    "This critical difference allows organisations to restore back to a given event or a given point in time – and be assured that the application will restore correctly," he adds.

  • Dataram Unveils XcelaSAN Storage Optimization Appliance

    Dataram has introduced the XcelaSAN storage optimization appliance, as the company claims – the industry’s first solution to seamlessly deliver up to 30x performance improvement to existing applications.

    The XcelaSAN storage optimization appliance augments existing storage systems by transparently applying caching algorithms that serve the most active block-level data from high speed solid state storage, creating an intelligent, virtual solid state SAN.

    According to Dataram, by accessing under-utilized disk capacity and optimizing data performance of existing storage systems, XcelaSAN eliminates the need for additional hardware to increase application performance – providing investment protection by extending the life of the existing infrastructure and lowering the overall cost of storage ownership for organizations.

    In addition, as the customer’s storage infrastructure changes or consolidates, those new components will automatically benefit from the XcelaSAN storage optimization technology, the company says.

    “The XcelaSAN is an innovative solution which enables mid-sized organizations to seamlessly increase the performance of their existing business-critical applications within an hour of installation. These gains come without making changes to the customer’s existing storage systems, servers or applications," said John Freeman, Dataram’s President and CEO.

    XcelaSAN connects to a storage network using eight 4Gb/s Fibre Channel ports and can connect to the storage switch fabric or directly to back-end storage. It transparently installs in about an hour with no new host software required. The system is managed through a web-based browser for user-friendly operation.

    "It is now well understood that the benefit of a solid state infrastructure for compute-intensive environments is higher application performance with less equipment and lower operational costs," stated Jason Caulkins, Dataram Chief Technologist.

    "The question is no longer ‘How can I benefit from solid state storage?’ but ‘How do I best implement solid state in my existing infrastructure?”

    The XcelaSAN begins shipping during Q4 in the United States and in 1H 2010 throughout Europe and Asia. Pricing starts at $65,000.

  • DataCore Now Supports Fibre Channel over Ethernet

    DataCore announced support for native Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) connectivity for its its SANmelody and SANsymphony storage virtualisation solutions.

    The company has added the Emulex and Brocade FCoE converged network adapters (CNAs) and Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switches to its FCoE-qualified support list.

    FCoE software drivers are currently available for Microsoft Windows and VMware ESX/vSphere.

    FCoE is a new way of using Ethernet in data centres. It is primarily used to consolidate back-end cables in a data centre – enabling network administrators to use the Ethernet infrastructure for FC and IP protocols. What is needed to make it work is a converged network adapter (CNA), which serves as an FCoE card, along with a network switch.

    According to DataCore, their customers can now transition to an FCoE infrastructure while still supporting existing Fibre Channel investments.

    Customers can run both FCoE and IP traffic through the same port and on the same wire, eliminating the need and expense for separate SAN and LAN adapters and cables.

    The ability to run FC protocol over existing Ethernet cabling is significant for network administration, the company claims. It means that administrators do not need to have a separate network for running Fibre Channel protocol.

    Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing in DataCore stated that their customers can take advantage of FCoE in their “highly scalable, non-stop storage pools without having to replace or modify their existing back-end storage, which may well include DAS, iSCSI and Fibre Channel interfaces.”

  • DataPipe Rolls Out 3PAR Cloud-Agile Services

    3PAR, a provider of utility storage, announced that managed global IT service provider and 3PAR Cloud-Agile partner DataPipe now offers differentiated virtual private array (VPA) and disaster recovery (DR) services as part of their Stratosphere cloud services, which are powered by 3PAR Utility Storage.

    DataPipe is the first member of the 3PAR Cloud-Agile program to offer its customers 3PAR Cloud-Agile ASSURED and 3PAR Cloud-Agile SECURED services through this program.

    As the company claims, 3PAR Cloud-Agile ASSURED powers DataPipe’s delivery of highly available and flexible business continuance solutions which are easy to use, quick to implement, and require minimal effort to maintain. 3PAR Cloud-Agile ASSURED leverages 3PAR Remote Copy and gives DataPipe the ability to offer cost-effective, flexible, and robust remote data replication, DR, and autonomic data backup to end users.

    “With 3PAR and VMware powering Stratosphere, we have been able to extend the value we deliver to our customers and enhance the security, agility, and cost-efficiency of the services we offer,” said Michael Parks, Chief Technology Officer for DataPipe.

    He assures that with the new 3PAR cloud service his company offers isolated, secure virtual private array services for performance and security levels previously only available with dedicated hardware, but with a cost structure approaching that of a shared service offering.

    DataPipe delivers VPA services as a value-added “shared” hosting option with the security of a dedicated environment. 3PAR Cloud-Agile: SECURED employs the combination of 3PAR Utility Storage and 3PAR Virtual Domains to give DataPipe the ability to deliver high performance levels while providing secure segregation within a shared, virtualized hardware platform that is protected from unauthorized access, monitoring, and control.

    “As cloud computing has gained momentum, we’ve seen the spotlight mainly cast on virtual private servers and security concerns at the virtual server level,” said Jeff Boles, Senior Analyst and Director at Taneja Group.

    “However, virtual private server deployments are only as secure as the storage foundation upon which they are built. 3PAR Cloud-Agile SECURE enables providers like DataPipe to offer VPA services that ensure security, segregation, and data integrity from the ground up, to complement the security that VMware delivers at the virtual server level,” he added.

    According to Parag Patel, vice president of VMware, combining VMware vSphere 4 with private and resilient 3PAR Utility Storage, service providers like DataPipe are able to meet the demand for security and high availability from their customers who utilize services delivered via the cloud.

    DataPipe provides custom solutions for complex internet-facing infrastructures, proactively managing security, monitoring, storage, datacenter operations, servers, and applications including database administration and software stack.

  • Pillar First to Deliver 2TB SATA to Enterprise Customers

    Pillar Data Systems, the provider of Application-Aware storage systems, is the first network storage company to make 2 terabyte SATA drives available to the enterprise market.

    The drives have been introduced in a frame of the company’s initiative to “Stop Storage Waste” and will be available as a part of the its Axiom storage system.

    The new drives push the Axiom’s overall usable capacity to over 1.6 petabytes per system, while driving down overall power consumption by 50 percent and space consumption by 2X.

    According to the company, Pillar is the only storage vendor to guarantee 80-percent utilization on its Axiom storage system. “No other open systems storage array on the market today can deliver that level of disk utilization without performance degradation,” they assure.

    The Pillar Axiom differentiates performance based on application priority, what Pillar calls Application Aware Storage. The company claims that this system “can dramatically reduce floor space and energy demands, and lower Total Cost of Ownership by up to 50 percent.”

    Additionally, the Axiom system performed the fastest rebuild times in the industry, according to an independent analyst report. In April the Demartek’s study showed the Pillar Axiom 500 performed the fastest drive rebuilds – up to 71-percent faster – with minimal impact to application performance, when compared to competitors EMC (EMC CX3-40) and Network Appliance (NetApp FAS3050c.)

    “As drive sizes continue to increase, more storage will be wasted unless you have a storage architecture that can utilize the full capacity with no performance degradation,” said Bob Maness, Vice President of Pillar Data Systems.

    “Our latest innovations around SSDs and now 2TB drives will make it even easier for end-users to increase capacity and performance, while improving the overall efficiency of their system,” he added.