Business News Holding

Category: storage

  • Spectra Logic Launches Next Level Tape Storage Solution

    Spectra Logic, a provider of data protection solutions, has launched what it claims is the industry’s first integrated system for deduplication, remote site replication and automated migration to tape.

    Demand for integrated management of tiered backup solutions is increasing as more companies consider using deduplication in their data protection environments.

    Spectra’s solution integrates disk-based deduplication to tape by providing policy-based, integrated remote site replication and automated migration of replicated data to tape.

    According to the company, Spectra’s nTier Deduplication is “fast, scalable and easy-to-manage.” As a fully scalable deduplication appliance for small and medium-sized organizations, nTier Deduplication offers the ability to add capacity to installed appliances as needed.

    nTier Deduplication achieves increased deduplication efficiency by sharing deduplication catalogs among remote sites. Users no longer need to establish multiple policies across numerous sites or purchase separate software to move replicated deduplication data to a tape archive.

    “As data volumes grow, IT Administrators are continually challenged to protect everything they need to protect,” said John Webster, senior analyst at Illuminata.

    “The integration and policy-based automation of deduplication with other data protection processes available with nTier Deduplication helps IT administrators more easily and quickly meet their growing data protection obligations.”

    nTier Deduplication can be scaled up to 60TBs of raw capacity, without interrupting data availability and without requiring any migration of data.

    The simple field capacity upgrades are available as needed and do not require a disruptive unit replacement. The solution eliminates the need for additional equipment, multiple policies or third-party software.

    nTier Deduplication runs up speeds up to 900MB per second, and the company assures that it’s compatible with all major backup software applications. Base pricing for an nTier500 v80 Deduplication appliance starts at $23,500.

    At the same time Spectra has announced the general availability of its latest storage management software – BlueScale 10.6 that offers high availability features for the enterprise that were previously only available on disk.

    Integrated into Spectra T-Series tape libraries, BlueScale 10.6 delivers the first “hot spare” drive available for tape libraries, proactive notification of potential hardware failure with Hardware Lifecycle Management (HLM) and auto-discovery of new media through its Media Lifecycle Management (MLM) enhancements.

    The company says that “the intelligent remote management capabilities allow customers to monitor the health of media and hardware, alleviate unscheduled site visits, and reduce costs and resource requirements.”

    BlueScale 10.6 is available as a free upgrade to existing customers with current support contracts.

  • Verizon to Offer New Encryption Services For Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

    Verizon is expanding its encryption service to cover documents and e-mail and launches new services for small and medium-sized businesses.

    Encrypted Docs enables the user to encrypt files and folders and determine who can access, read and write to the file or folder, enforcing privacy policies. As a result, important data – such as intellectual property, customer records, contracts, human resource files and highly sensitive negotiations – can be safeguarded via encryption.

    According to the company, e-mail encryption and newly added data encryption services will help prevent privacy leaks, unauthorized access and help keep documents private in case of theft or loss.

    Verizon Encrypted Mail service, which has been available since December 2005, verifies and authenticates that the message has not been altered, allows it to be opened only by the intended recipient, and allows users to lock e-mail that they receive so it cannot be viewed by others.

    Both services, available through the privacy packages (such as Data Protection Paks) offered by Verizon, are based on PKI, X.509 and S/MIME encryption standards.

    The company claims the services are best suited for businesses that have to comply with government regulations, and businesses that have employees who work at remote locations, where data should be kept private at all times to prevent loss or theft.

    "Typically, small businesses do not have the IT staff of large enterprises to manage the complexity involved with encryption services," said Mark Grosso, senior manager of business security products for Verizon.

    "Verizon is like a SMB’s CIO, offering small and medium-sized businesses an affordable, cost-effective suite of important Internet security services such as anti-virus protection, a remote backup and storage solution, and encryption services that will help ensure safeguarding the privacy of business’ data at every level. Plus, we offer our SMB customers 24 x 7 technical support," he added.

    How it works?

    For the encryption service, a user registers and downloads one plug-in for Encrypted Mail and Encrypted Docs. Before sending an e-mail message, users just click on the "Secure" button on their toolbar, and their message – along with any attachments – is immediately encrypted, digitally signed and sent to the recipient. If the recipient is another registered Encrypted Mail user, the user can open the message after entering his or her password.

    See a demonstration of Encrypted Mail here, and Encrypted Docs here.

    According to Verizon, the most robust privacy package is Data Protection Premium. Starting at $9.99 per month, it includes Encrypted Mail and Encrypted Docs together with the Verizon Internet Security Suite for Internet protection of up to 3 PCs, plus Online Backup and Sharing. This offer combines data encryption services with anti-virus, firewall, anti-spyware, fraud protection and content management, plus online storage and much more, whether in the office or on-the-go.

    "An organization needs to address its IT security at every layer, Grosso said. "While cost cutting is what all companies – particularly, the smaller ones – strive for these days, it’s important to not cut privacy solutions. That’s a surefire way to kill a business."

  • BTI Receives Brocade Data Center Ready Status for Storage Networking Modules


    BTI Systems has announced that the BTI 7000 Series has additional client services modules, verified by Brocade Communications Systems, as compatible with Brocade-based SAN infrastructure.

    The Brocade Data Center Ready program is a testing and configuration initiative designed to foster end-to-end SAN interoperability. As part of the program, testing is conducted in SAN configurations that include a heterogeneous mix of servers, storage systems, Brocade switches, SAN management and enterprise applications, and other SAN technologies.

    Vendors receive Brocade Data Center Ready qualification after completing tests to confirm that vendors’ products meet interoperability guidelines.

    “Storage area networks are being deployed worldwide at a rapid rate as a scalable, high-performance networking foundation for storage environments. The Brocade Data Center Ready program is an example of our continued commitment to delivering end-to-end interoperability to customers,” said Ben Taft, Senior Director of Strategic Alliances at Brocade.

    BTI Systems certified the Dual 4G Multiprotocol Transponder (1, 2, 4G Fibre Channel), Dual 10G Multiprotocol Transponder (10G Fibre Channel), and the 10-port Multiprotocol Muxponder (1, 2, 4G Fibre Channel), complementing the Dual 1G and 2.5G Multiprotocol Transponders previously certified.

    Jason Smith    , Solutions Marketing and Certifications Program Manager of BTI Systems, claims the Brocade Data Center certification is a key industry stamp that is important to their customers.

    “They know that BTI Systems’ platforms meet the high standards of Brocade’s rigorous testing and they can be confident about the performance we deliver,” he said.

    The BTI 7000 Series delivers all the capabilities of large core network platforms in the industry’s most compact, modular, low power consumption, easy-to-use packet optical network system.

    BTI’s Intelligent Service Edge solutions provide wavelength and packet-level delivery of high capacity services such as video, storage, wired data, wireless data and voice, and media to the network edge.

  • Xyratex First to Announce Support for Hitachi’s 2TB HD

    Xyratex, a provider of enterprise-class data storage subsystems and storage process technology, announced support for Hitachi GST’s enterprise-class 7,200 RPM 2TB offering, the Ultrastar A7K2000 hard disk drive.

    Xyratex claims new Hitachi’s drive have been fully integrated into Xyratex’s family of storage systems “making it the industry’s first, fully integrated external storage subsystem to deliver the highest-capacity, most energy efficient drives per capacity available for enterprise storage systems”.

    The Ultrastar A7K2000 will be available for Xyratex products over the next quarter.

    Hitachi announced its first enterprise version of 2TB drive – the Ultrastar A7K2000, earlier this month. It is now possible to achieve 1.2 petabytes (PB) in the footprint of a standard 19-inch enterprise storage rack by deploying the 2TB A7K2000 in a stack of ten 4U, 60-bay enclosures. It has a 1.2 million hours MTBF (mean time before failure) rating, a bulk data encryption option and SATA 3Gb/s interface.

    “Xyratex and Hitachi are committed to meeting the explosive capacity growth in enterprise data centers while advancing reduced power consumption and improved system performance,” said Brendan Collins, vice president of marketing, Hitachi GST.

    UK-based Xyratex designs and manufactures enabling technology that provides OEM and disk drive manufacturer customers with data storage products to support high-performance storage and data communication networks.

    Xyratex OEMs are able to customize the system to meet a diverse set of application workloads and environments ranging from data centers to distributed operations. Xyratex also delivers a storage server platform that allows the convergence of servers and storage in a single, highly available system.

  • Nexsan and FalconStor to Deliver New Nexsan DeDupe SG Family

    Nexsan Technologies, the provider of disk-based storage and FalconStor Software, the provider of data protection solutions, announced a strategic venture to deliver a joint solution, which has resulted in the delivery of an integrated deduplication product family for high-performance, power-efficient data storage.

    Based on Nexsan’s storage systems and the FalconStor File-interface Deduplication System (FDS) software, the new, Nexsan DeDupe SG ("Speed with Green") product family will be delivered by Nexsan through its worldwide network of channel partners.

    "The new self-optimizing capability of this product will help companies realize benefits in both power and data efficiency while automating critical storage management processes," said Lauren Whitehouse, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group.

    Storage deduplication systems are primarily used as backup targets, operating only during the backup window. Even though the typical backup window is less than eight hours a day, the deduplication systems spin drives and burn energy for the remaining 16 hours, even while not in use. With Nexsan DeDupe SG, customers are supposed to get higher capacity and better performance during their backups and to save energy and reduce costs every hour that the system is not in use.

    Nexsan DeDupe SG leverages the green efficiencies inherent to its technology components: data reduction through high-speed deduplication, footprint reduction by utilizing space-efficient storage arrays, and substantial energy savings through AutoMAID technology.

    It also maximizes interoperability with all data sources, including disk-to-disk backup and archiving applications. It can be deployed in any physical or virtual infrastructure environment, offering file-level access to a central block-level deduplication repository. The product supports all major backup software, directly accepts Oracle RMAN, Microsoft SQL and other database dumps, and provides integrated data replication and deduplication.

    FalconStor FDS, the deduplication engine for the Nexsan DeDupe SG family, is a block-level deduplication software solution that presents a network share interface as a backup repository, offering space-saving option for writing data to disk.

  • Texas Memory Systems Delivers Record 5-Million IOPS Flash-based SSD System

    Texas Memory Systems launches the RamSan-6200 SSD System that offers up to 100 terabytes of Flash-based storage in a 40U rack configuration that can sustain a record 5 million input/outputs per second (IOPS) with 60 gigabytes per second throughput while using a little over 6 kilowatts of power.

    To achieve the equivalent level of performance with hard disk-based storage arrays would require several thousand of the 15,000 RPM hard disk drives.

    The RamSan-6200 is a scaled up system that combines twenty RamSan-620 solid state disks in a single datacenter rack and uses Texas Memory Systems’ TeraWatch software to provide unified management and monitoring from a single GUI console. The system utilizes enterprise grade Single Level Cell (SLC) Flash as well as multiple levels of RAID and advanced Flash management algorithms.

    A single RamSan-620 unit provides 5TB of Single Level Cell (SLC) Flash with 250,000 sustained IOPS for random reads and random writes. Each RamSan-620 unit can support 2 to 8 Fibre Channel or up to 4 InfiniBand links.

    At the chip level, TMS uses only SLC Flash memory. Each Flash chip incorporates an Error Checking and Correction (ECC) data field within the chip to check and correct single-bit errors.

    At the board level, each set of Flash chips is organized as a board-level RAID, thereby eliminating any single chip failure from corrupting data.

    At the system level, the RamSan-620 allows to designate one of the cards inside the system as an active-spare that works hand-in-hand with the chip level RAID on each of our boards. If one of the cards experiences a failure that degrades its RAID protection, the system will immediately migrate the data on that card to the hot-spare to return to a fully redundant state.

  • DataCore and Citrix to Distribute Free-To-Try DataCore Virtual SAN Appliance

    DataCore Software, the provider of storage virtualisation, business continuity and disaster recovery software solutions, announced that it has teamed up with Citrix Systems to distribute a free to try, downloadable, DataCore Virtual SAN Appliance. The company also released a Citrix StorageLink adapter to integrate its storage virtualisation solutions with Citrix Essentials for XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V.

    The Virtual SAN Appliance evaluation software enables to try Citrix Essentials with a StorageLink-certified, iSCSI shared storage SAN that can pool up to 1 Terabyte of disk space, efficiently “Thin Provision” storage to virtual machines, speed up application performance and create snapshots for Instant Volume Cloning and Fast Disk-to-Disk Backups.

    The DataCore Virtual SAN Appliance and StorageLink Adapter can be downloaded at www.datacore.com/virtualSANappliance.

    “Customers want performance, productivity and manageability in a dynamic virtual infrastructure. Through StorageLink, DataCore presents to Citrix Essentials virtual disks that are well behaved, non-stop, lightning fast and waste-free, even though the physical storage behind it may come from a variety of manufacturers and be of a price, age and quality very different from one another,” said George Teixeira, DataCore president and CEO.

    DataCore has developed a fast-track “ramp up” programme for its partners, which provides them with NFR software and the opportunity to build their DataCore businesses at their own pace. The DataCore solutions are verified Citrix Ready through the Open Storage Program.

  • Digital Realty Trust Launches Pod Architecture Services

    Digital Realty Trust, the wholesale datacenter provider, has launched a new offering called POD Architecture Services(SM) to provide design and construction services to companies that own or want to own their own datacenter facility, and would like to leverage Digital Realty Trust’s datacenter expertise and resources.

    This new product offering will enable customers to license Digital Realty Trust’s datacenter design packages, benefit from the Company’s procurement supply chain, and utilize the Digital Realty Trust team’s proven Gating Process(SM) for enterprise control throughout the construction process.

    Michael Manos, DRT’s Senior Vice President of Technical Services claims that these services fill a gap in the market between a pure do-it-yourself approach and leasing wholesale space from an outsourced provider. “Many companies want to own their own datacenter, but they do not have the internal skill set and experience to successfully tackle a construction project with the scope and complexity of a major datacenter facility”, he said.

    By using our POD Architecture Services(SM), customers can utilize everything from the company’s blueprints to its relationships with vendors – as well as the expertise that the manager brings to the process.

    Digital Realty Trust’s fee-based POD Architecture Services(SM) also enable companies to license Digital Realty Trust’s Turn-Key Datacenter(SM) design package, including its proprietary Design Engineering Guidelines, schematics, one-lines, BOMs, project/site basis and airflow modelling.

    “As customers increasingly adopt modular approaches to datacenters that speed time to market and lower upfront costs, blueprints such as those from Digital Realty will be in demand in both hosted facilities as well as customers’ own facilities”, said Michelle Bailey, Research Vice President, Enterprise Platforms at IDC

    Digital Realty Trust owns, acquires, redevelops, develops and manages technology-related real estate. The company is focused on providing Turn-Key Datacenter(SM) and Powered Base Building(SM) datacenter solutions for domestic and international tenants across a variety of industry verticals ranging from information technology and internet enterprises, to manufacturing and financial services.

  • Teradata Announces Availability of Its Newest Database for Enterprise Intelligence

    Teradata Corporation, the company solely focused on data warehousing and enterprise analytics, today announced general availability of Teradata 13, which includes Teradata Database 13, Teradata Tools and Utilities 13, services and partnerships.

    Teradata acts as a single data store that can accept large numbers of concurrent requests from multiple client applications. Teradata Enterprise Data Warehouses are often accessed via ODBC or JDBC by applications running on operating systems such as Microsoft Windows or flavors of UNIX. The warehouse typically sources data from operational systems via a combination of batch and trickle loads.

    Teradata 13 enables data to stream up to two times faster into the data warehouse. Simultaneously, tens-of-thousands of variables can be analyzed directly in the database. The high-speed data loading and analysis do not interrupt or slow each other, providing agility for business users. The loading of data at high speed has been made possible by using specialized tables to support businesses that accumulate massive data volumes like retail and financial services.

    The query optimizer interprets a query and determines the most efficient way for the database to process it providing business users with a rapid response to their queries. Database administrators and application developers don’t have to be involved, because these enhancements deploy automatically.

    “A data warehouse must deliver analytical muscle, not just scalable storage. Teradata 13’s ability to balance complex workloads is key to this effort. The addition of geospatial and temporal capabilities will provide Teradata customers with entirely new opportunities for business models.” said Scott Gnau, head of development, Teradata Corporation.

    According to Gnau, “Teradata customers will be able to improve the processing of selected geospatial queries by as much as 20 times by integrating and analyzing geospatial or location data along with customer and operational data in-database. Geospatial processing is the latest process that is executed in parallel inside the Teradata Database along with in-database OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing) and in-database data mining with SAS. The integrated geospatial data and the high performance of Teradata Database will add a significant new data dimension for customers seeking to increase the intelligence of their enterprise.”

    For customers using OLAP for standard business analytic queries, some type of queries are supposed to run up to 20 times faster on Teradata 13. The Teradata Database patented “intelligent scanning” innovation, eliminates the need to scan data whenever possible, unlike some vendors that focus on brute force, which wastes resources by unnecessarily scanning rows and rows of data.

    Teradata is a massively parallel processing system running a shared nothing architecture. It is offered on Intel servers interconnected by the proprietary BYNET messaging fabric. Teradata systems are offered with either Teradata-branded LSI or EMC disk arrays for database storage.

  • LSI Launches RAID Controller Cards Based On 6Gb/s SAS Technology


    LSI has launched a new generation of MegaRAID SATA+SAS RAID controller cards based on 6Gb/s SAS technology.

    The storage and networking solution provider has also announced its new channel strategy for worldwide customers.

    Compared with 3Gb/s predecessors, the company said the 6Gb/s SAS RAID-on-chip (ROC) system provides more video streams, more database transactions and faster backups.

    This enables the MegaRAID 9200 series controllers to double the data transfer rate and deliver up to 2.88 GB/s in sequential reads and 1.87 GB/s in sequential writes, according to the company.

    The 9200 series controllers also provide channel customers with a low-cost upgrade that is designed to easily integrate with existing 3Gb/s SATA and SAS infrastructure, the company said.

    Suresh Panikar, senior manager of worldwide channel partner marketing and communications at LSI, said the controllers also support both high-performance SAS hard drives and cost-effective, high-capacity SATA drives, as well as energy-efficient solid state drives (SSDs) and bring standardized zoning which improves storage efficiencies by allowing multiple servers to share storage devices.

    They come with four ports and eight ports to reach up to a storage capacity of 480 terabytes.

    The new LSI MegaRAID controllers include five models – MegaRAID 9260-8i (eight internal ports), MegaRAID 9260-4i (four internal ports), MegaRAID 9280-8e (eight external ports), MegaRAID 9260DE-8i and MegaRAID 9280DE-8e. The 9260-8i is available now while the rest will be available by September.

    In addition to the next-generation product, the company announced it has teamed up with channel partners include vertical OEMs (VOEMs), direct market resellers (DMRs), resellers, and distributors to service its customers worldwide. LSI also provides forward looking fundings to those channel partners quarterly in advance for them to have more sufficient resources in promoting and selling LSI products.

    Phil Bullinger, executive vice president and general manager of the Engenio Storage Group at LSI, said: "LSI’s strong channel partnerships are a key strategic advantage in the marketplace and central to the company’s business strategy."