Business News Holding

Category: storage

  • Overland Storage Launches Tape Libraries With Embedded Functionality


    Overland Storage has announced the availability of the first models in its next-generation NEO SERIES line of scalable, automated tape libraries.

    The NEO E-Series libraries, which provide embedded functionality, are geared at meeting a wide range of demanding data protection and long-term archive requirements.

    According to Overland, the new NEO E-Series enables embedded SCSI, FC and SAS connectivity, easing installations while ensuring connectivity with future interface technologies. Other embedded capabilities include:

    • Improved performance and feature support with enhanced processing power,
    • Further investment protection via Integrated partitioning,
    • More efficient data access due to improved mailslot functionality,
    • Ease of management via remote diagnostics with proactive monitoring,
    • Superior reliability and serviceability through the use of enhanced robotics, more efficient power supply and innovative library/drive interface.

    The new NEO E-Series has been designed t integrate easily with Overland’s REO SERIES of disk-based backup and recovery VTLs, Snap Server NAS appliances, ULTAMUS RAID SAN storage as well as other disk-based products.

    Ravi Pendekanti, VP of worldwide sales and marketing for Overland Storage, said the latest enhancements to the NEO tape family provided mid-range customers with affordable, scalable end-to-end data protection solutions.

    "Over the past decade, the NEO tape libraries have proven themselves as important assets in our customers’ end-to-end data protection and archiving strategies," he said.

    "Therefore, it is imperative that we continue to add new features and functionality while leveraging NEO’s highly regarded and trusted tape technology and proven product architecture."

    The NEO E-Series adds support for LTO HH tape drive technologies and direct-connect interfaces, which Overland said lowers initial expenditures and enables customers to add new capabilities over time while protecting their investments in tape-based backup and recovery.

    Overland’s NEO 2000E scales from 30 to 240 cartridges per module while the NEO 4000E scales from 60 to 240 cartridges.

    NEO2000E and 4000E can be scaled with each other in an almost limitless combination, providing a variety of capacity points to meet end user needs.

    Both tape library models are available now from Overland’s channel partners worldwide with a starting MSRP of USD $12,333.

    Robert Amatruda, research director at IDC for tape and removable storage, said the mid-range tape automation market is expected to exceed USD $1 billion in annual sales, with more than 100,000 units shipped in 2008.

    "The majority of companies still depend on tape for long-term archive and disaster recovery," he said.

    "Overland’s new NEO E-Series, with its increased functionality, should integrate well with a company’s existing disk-based solutions, and help companies meet recovery time and recovery point objectives (RTO/RPO) in both SAN and NAS environments."

  • WD Launches 2TB Hard Drive


    WD has announced the first 2 terabyte (TB) hard drive – the world’s highest capacity drive.

    The device is the latest addition to WD’s environmentally friendly Caviar Green hard drive family.

    This new 3.5-inch platform is based on WD’s 500 GB/platter technology (with 400 Gb/in2 areal density) with 32 MB cache, producing drives with capacities of up to 2 TB.

    Mark Geenen, president of Trend Focus, said there were some in the industry who wondered if the end consumer would buy a 1 TB drive.

    He said that already some 10 per cent of 3.5-inch hard drive sales are at the 1 TB level or higher.

    They served demand from video applications and expanding consumer media libraries.

    "The 2 TB hard drives will continue to satisfy end user’s insatiable desire to store more data on ever larger hard drives," he said.

    External storage solutions are a common place for extreme-capacity drives to help consumers manage these media libraries.
    The WD Caviar Green 2 TB will be available later this month at select resellers and distributors for Euro 299.00.

    This week, WD also reported revenue of USD $1.8 billion, on shipments of approximately 35.5 million units and net income of USD $14 million, or $0.06 per share, for its fiscal second quarter ended 26 December, 2008.

    The company’s results include charges of USD $113 million associated with the restructuring plan announced on 17 December.

    Excluding the restructuring charges and the related tax benefit of USD $4 million, non-GAAP net income was USD $123 million or $0.55 per share.

  • BCS Develops New Qualification For Data Centres


    The British Computer Society (BCS) is to develop a new qualification for data centre operators.

    It follows the publication of the EU Code of Conduct for data centres and BCS’ recent work to encourage the IT industry to address the issues of energy cost, power consumption and carbon emissions.

    The qualification will set an international standard for IT professionals in understanding energy efficiency irrespective of what discipline they practice within the industry.

    It will take the form of a one hour examination following a three-day practitioner course based on understanding and implementing the EU Code of Conduct for data centre operators.

    Pete Bayley, BCS director of qualifications, said: "With estimates that a data centre can account for 25 per cent of the total IT cost to a ‘typical’ company, many businesses are examining how they can make their centres more efficient both in terms of costs and carbon emissions to comply with the new EU Code of Conduct."

    The new qualification is part of the ongoing programme of work the BCS is delivering to industry through its carbon footprint working group and data centre specialist group.

    This programme addresses the needs of organisation in understanding their energy use and implementing an holistic approach to energy accounting and management.

    Bayley said he believed the qualification and training would be of interest not only to almost all subject matter experts within the field of IT but also IT procurement where the best practices form an independent set of measures by which energy efficiency claims can be usefully assessed and compared.

    Liam Newcombe, secretary of the data centre specialist group said: "After almost 18 months working with worldwide industry representatives, academics and government bodies to develop the EU code of conduct as an independent, effective and trusted standard, BCS is taking up the challenge of providing education and qualifications to support its delivery and implementation."

    The qualification will be available from summer 2009 and will complement the BCS Foundation Certificate in Green IT which will be launched in April 2009

  • SSDs and Video Capture Are Fastest Growing NAND Flash Applications


    NAND flash revenue in two key applications – Solid State Drives (SSDs) and Video Capture from Digital Video Cameras (DVCs) – will see compound annual growth rates (CAGR) of over 100 per cent through 2012, according to In-Stat.

    The analysts said this will overcome some of the weaknesses in other segments of the NAND flash market and drive overall growth to 30 per cent CAGR.

    Jim McGregor, In-Stat analyst, said the top four applications for NAND flash will remain MP3 players and PMPs, mobile handsets, after-market cards, and USB Flash Drives.

    He said they will command a combined market share of over 80 per cent over the next couple of years.

    "This percentage will drop to about 70 per cent by 2012, as solid state drives (SSDs) and video capture from digital video cameras (DVCs), grow in mportance," he said.

    Among the NAND Flash market share leaders, including Samsung, Toshiba and Hynix, all lost market share in 2007.

    Smaller share competitors, Micron and Intel, each gained share.

    The In-Stat report forecasts that worldwide NAND flash revenues are likely to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.7 per cent from 2007-2012 to reach USD $61 billion.

    Worldwide NOR flash revenues will increase at a 6 per cent CAGR from 2007 through 2012.

  • Final Chance to Nominate Storage Person/Product Of The Year


    The new year is firmly underway and time is running out for you to submit your nominations and votes for storage.biz-news’ 2008 Man and Product of the Year awards.

    But with voting expected to be close in both award categories there’s plenty of opportunity for latecomers to make their mark.

    In the product section, submissions can be made for anything storage-related that has particularily impressed in 2008.

    Among the leading contenders in this category are Compellent (SAN with automated ILM), Akorri (BalancePoint), TADASoft (RestorePoint), Dell (EqualLogic), Texas Memory Systems (RamSan-440) and Brioo (Brioo Live Backup).

    EMC also gets nominated for a couple of its products – the CLARiiON AX4 networked storage solution and its Enterprise Flash Drives.

    The former is described simply as "mind blowing". Heady stuff.

    For Person of the Year, StorageRap’s Marc Farley is among the contenders.

    He is praised for his insightful and witty handling of some of the "hot button issues" facing the industry.

    Also up there is Adam Fox, a senior systems engineer at NetApp.

    But there’s still time for other names to be put forward.

    But please don’t delay – we need your product or person nominations before the end of January.

  • ParaScale CEO Says 2009 To Be Year Cloud Storage Breaks Out


    Cloud computing – including cloud storage – will transform the industry and become the predominant way in which IT is consumed.

    That’s the prediction of Sajai Krishnan, CEO of Silicon Valley start-up ParaScale.

    He said there has been a rapid heightening of interest recently in all things cloud – applications, computing and storage.

    As a result enterprises are increasingly turning to cloud storage as a way to enable flexible computing power over the Internet, according to Krishnan.

    "We believe the impact of cloud technologies will be transformational and cloud will be a major way by which IT is consumed as we move forward," he said.

    Sajai Krishnan, CEO ParaScale

    Krishnan said a company could buy cloud storage – where the company builds a private or internal cloud – or rent it – where the company rents by the GB per month from a public cloud storage service provider.

    Regardless of whichever method was chosen, he said the advantages of cloud storage would soon be as mainstream as the architectures that came before it, including 3-tier web applications, client/server and mainframe.

    But like most emerging technology there had been some initial hesitancy towards adopting it.

    Krishnan said that in 2008, many companies were wary of the risks and vulnerabilities of participating in the cloud computing model.

    So despite the buzz around the technology being high, adoption was feathered.

    “This all changes in 2009 – the economic downturn and the addition of private cloud solutions to complement public offerings are creating an environment that enables incremental adoption of cloud storage on a very broad scale," he said.

    Krishnan said discussions with end users had shown that the overwhelming majority indicate they are considering both public and private cloud storage.

    He identifies several considerations driving the adoption of storage clouds. These include:

    • Building storage clouds is becoming as simple as installing a new application on your laptop. This is enabling service providers and the enterprise to embrace this technology with minimal effort.
    • Cloud storage can start small and scale-up as needed. Organizations are no longer over-building to address the potential for rapid growth. Instead the drive is to put in place an architecture that is extremely flexible and that can scale on demand using commodity hardware and standard client access.
    • Clouds are designed to be self-managing and don’t require heavy IT manpower. Storage tiering, provisioning, and data movement are
    • time consuming tasks that are automated in cloud storage.
    • Storage clouds can be tuned for specific uses or applications. For example, clouds can be tuned for archival very cost-effectively, or
    • for streaming media performance.

  • Campbell Joins Hitachi Global Storage Technologies


    Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has appointed Steven Campbell as Chief Technology Officer.

    Campbell will have global responsibility for all aspects of the company’s product development and technical vision.

    As the top technology executive for Hitachi GST, he will play a strategic role in the company’s future direction and business growth.

    With 30 years of experience in the electronics and data storage industry, he served in senior executive roles at Western Digital Corporation and technology management roles at Quantum and Hewlett-Packard.

    Most recently he was Chief Executive Officer of Singapore listed Innotek Limited and Innotek’s subsidiary Magnecomp Precision Technology, a strategic component supplier to major hard drive companies.

    His experience at Western Digital included serving as General Manager of the Desktop Solutions Line of Business, Senior Vice President of Engineering, Vice President of New Product Introduction and Chief Quality Officer.

    He will be based at Hitachi’s San Jose, California headquarters.

  • SanDisk and LG Offer Flash Storage Services for Mobile Networks


    SanDisk Corporation and LG Electronics have demonstrated a new technology for mobile phones that offers multimedia-rich services using removable flash memory cards.

    It enables mobile network operators (MNOs) to distribute preloaded and downloaded content on removable memory cards, while restricting the accessibility of such premium content to their network subscribers.

    The content protection service is made possible by enabling memory cards to authenticate user credentials via data on the SIM card.

    SanDisk and LG Electronics demonstrated the technology using the new LG KC910 Renoir.

    It ensures that content preloaded in the cards can only be used in approved handsets.

    The two companies have worked closely to implement this new technology.

    SanDisk’s technology brings flexible storage-based services to network operators by allowing IP connectivity to the memory card in the handset.

    The memory card serves as a network node that is remotely manageable by the operator using industry-standard TCP/IP and OMA Smart Card Web Server.

    Amir Lehr, senior director of business development at SanDisk, said the technology would allow handset manufacturers and MNOs to meet the increasingly sophisticated demands of consumers who want easy access to premium content on their mobile devices.

    He said it marks the beginning of a new era in mobile phone service and content distribution.

    LG Electronics’ adoption of new technologies like the OMA SmartCard Web Server (SCWS) standard, allows the subscriber’s SIM card to be used as an authorization server.

  • Troubled Seagate Offers Free Firmware Upgrade


    Seagate is to provide a free firmware upgrade for customers whose 1TB Barracuda drives have failed.

    The storage company said it has isolated a "potential firmware issue" that is believed to be responsible for a high rate of drive failure globally.

    A free data recover serviceis also to be offered to those affected.

    Seagate said in a statement that the firmware problem affects "some" Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives and "related drive families based on this product platform".

    It notes that "in some circumstances, the data on the hard drives may become inaccessible to the user when the host system is powered on".

    Consumers are being advised to contact Seagate’s support site, its call center or to send an email.

    While the company insists the firmware problem should not cause data loss it is offering to help in the event that it has been.

    "There is no data loss associated with this issue, and the data still resides on the drive," said the statement.

    "But if you are unable to access your data due to this issue, Seagate will provide free data recovery services."

    Last week Seagate announced that it was laying off 10 per cent of its worldwide staff and that long-serving chief executive, Bill Watkins, had resigned.

    Company chairman, Stephen Luczo, is to replace Watkins as CEO.

    Seagate is to report its results on 21 January.

  • Digital Realty Wins Datacentre Leaders' Award


    Digital Realty Trust, the world’s largest wholesale datacentre provider, has been recognised for "Innovation in an Outsourced Environment" by the prestigious Datacentre Leaders’ 2008 Awards.

    Digital Realty Trust received the honor for a Turn-Key Datacentre that Digital Realty Trust delivered to IBM to support growth of the company’s hosting business in France.

    The Datacentre Leaders’ Awards recognise innovation and reward excellence in facility design and operations in the UK and across Europe.

    Bernard Geoghegan, senior vice president at Digital Realty Trust, said it was an honor to receive the award, particularly for the IBM project.

    "By establishing its new datacentre in our Turn-Key Datacentre facility in Paris, IBM was able to eliminate capital requirements and meet all of its rigorous technical and financial objectives for the project," he said.

    The Turn-Key Datacentre facilities provide state-of-the-art environments for supporting mission critical infrastructure, with advanced cooling, power, redundancy, and sustainability features to ensure that critical applications are available while optimising energy efficiency.