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Category: storage

  • ATTO Adds Industry-first 8-GB Fibre Channel To RAID Storage Controllers


    ATTO Technology has announced the release of the industry’s first 8-Gb Fibre Channel-to-SAS/SATA RAID storage controller.

    FastStream SC 8500 is an independent external RAID Storage Controller that provides 8-Gb Fibre Channel host connectivity to multiple tiers of low-cost, off-the-shelf SAS/SATA disk storage enclosures.

    ATTO says the SC 8500 is well-suited for mid-range storage solutions.

    It is the highest performing RAID controller in its class delivering up to 1400 MB/sec. access to data while providing parity RAID protection to multiple tiers of disk enclosures.

    FastStream RAID Storage Controllers are designed to sit between workstations or a SAN and low-cost JBOD disk storage providing users the ability to scale their performance and storage capacity without purchasing a RAID controller every time expansion is needed.

    The FastStream is well-suited for applications in DVA and IT infrastructures including digital film production, high-definition video post-production, imaging, digital prepress, disk-to-disk backup, audio production and transaction-based environments.

    Tom Kolniak, director of products for ATTO Technology, said the FastStream SC 8500 Storage Controller was ideal for customers looking to improve workflow performance and add RAID protection in a collaborative environment.

    “The 8500 allows those currently using Direct Attached Storage to move to an affordable Storage Area Network solution providing them with the benefits and savings realized from a lower total cost of ownership for storage and increased efficiency in workflow production,” he said.

    He cited performance, scalability, and ease-of-use of the FastStream SC 8500 as key elements for customers looking to implement a solution that fits their needs while remaining within their budget.

  • CA Targets DLP With Purchase Of Orchestra


    CA has bought New York-based Orchestria Corporation, a leading provider of data loss prevention (DLP) technology.

    The company intends to develop and sell Orchestria’s information-centric DLP product in the rapidly growing DLP market.

    More ambitiously, it says it plans to transform the way organizations think about DLP, identity management and information security overall.

    A CA statement said: “Organizations and auditors need to know who has access to data and what they can do with it at a role or user level.

    “By using Orchestria’s DLP technology with CA identity and access management solutions, organizations will now be able to consolidate and strengthen their security postures by including information-centric policies in the process of centrally managing users and roles, and their access throughout the enterprise.”

    Dave Hansen, corporate senior vice president and general manager, CA Security Management, said the acquisition would allow CA to deliver one of the broadest and most advanced information security solutions in the market today and address the demand for a new generation of identity and access management.

    “We are continuing our aggressive plan to deliver to our customers a comprehensive solution for identity and access management to help meet their security, compliance and privacy needs,” he said.

    Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

  • EMC Cuts Jobs Despite Strong Results


    EMC is laying off 2,400 workers in a bid to streamline operations in the face of economic recession.

    The cuts represent about 7 per cent of its global 41,900 employee workforce.

    Despite the move, EMC is expected to post record quarterly revenue growth that will meet fourth-quarter expectations.

    The storage giant said in a statement that Q4 2008 revenues would total about USD $4 billion.

    This represents 4 per cent growth over the same period a year ago and an 8 per cent increase compared with the third quarter of 2008.

    EMC said the staff reductions were necessary to ensure it remained ahead of the downturn.

    The staffing cuts are expected to reduce expenses by USD $350 million in 2009 and USD $500 million by 2010.

    The company’s last redundancies took place in 2007, when it axed 1,350 jobs.

    At the time it said these were required because acquisitions had led to overlapping staff.

  • Season's Greetings From The Biz-news Team

    Everyone at storage.biz-news would like to thank you for your support in 2008. We hope you will continue to enjoy the latest Storage industry news and analysis in the year to come.

    Best Wishes For The Holiday Season and a Very Happy New Year

  • Memory Cards Earn Best Handset Accessory Revenue Return


    Memory cards provide the greatest revenue of all mobile phone add-ons, according ABI Research.

    This is despite cellular handset accessories such as chargers and batteries shipping far more units in what is today a USD $58 billion industry.

    Driven by the photo, audio and video demands of media-centric handsets and smartphones, these memory cards, largely from third-party suppliers such as SanDisk, will see a 17 per cent compound annual growth rate in shipments over the years to 2013.

    Industry analyst Michael Morgan said that of all accessories, memory cards deliver the best revenue return.

    "In fact, as production has outstripped demand the market is currently oversupplied, leading to a 60 per cent year-over-year fall in per-Megabyte prices," he said.

    "However, the memory capacity of the cards being sold is always increasing, and the resulting higher Megabyte volumes more than offset the decline in ASP."

    Handset makers have been putting inexpensive low-capacity cards into smartphone and media phone boxes for some time.

    Morgan said there is currently a point of friction between handset vendors and carriers: the operators want all memory cards out of the box, preferring to sell higher-capacity cards separately.

    "The challenge for mobile operators is that subsidizing handset accessories means losing some of the high margins that they earn through the sales of these products," he said.

    "But subsidies also mean that many more subscribers will have handset accessories such as memory cards, and will be more likely to use mobile music services or download songs, leading to higher data ARPUs for operators."

  • Toshiba Announces First 512GB SSD


    The rush to release the first Terabyte SSD continues with Toshiba’s announcement of a 2.5-inch 512GB NAND-based model.

    Market analysts expect SSDs will account for 10 per cent of the market for notebook computer storage by 2010, and 25 per cent by 2012.

    Toshiba also announced a family of fast read/write SSDs built around the 43-nanometer multi-level cell (MLC) NAND used in the 512GB.

    The drives are intended for notebooks, gaming and home-entertainment systems.

    They include capacities of 64GB, 128GB and 256GB and come in 1.8-inch or 2.5-in drive enclosures, or as flash modules.

    No price was announced for the 512GB SSD but it is expected to go on sale by the second quarter of 2009.

    Toshiba will be presented the new additions at next month’s CES in Las Vegas.

  • Western Digital Makes Cut-backs As Demand Weakens


    Western Digital is to cut 2,500 jobs, or about 5 per cent of its global work force, and will reduce executive pay as a result of the global economic situation.

    Citing weakening demand for its products, the hard drive maker the company now expects fiscal second-quarter sales of USD $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion, with a "consequent reduction in operating results."

    Western Digital said demand for the current quarter is "significantly below" what it expected when it issued revenue guidance in October.

    Previously it sales outlook was USD $2.03 billion to $2.15 billion.

    The company plans to reduce compensation by an unspecified amount for its executive officers, board of directors and senior management.

    Manufacturing operations will cease from December 20 through January 1 and manufacturing hours will be reduced by 20 per cent through employee attrition and reduction in the use of temporary workers and overtime shifts.

    It is also closing one of its three hard drive factories in Thailand and will close or sell one of two facilities in Malaysia.

    The measures, expected to be completed by the end of March, are expected to save about USD $150 million a year. Western Digital expects to take related charges of USD $150 million in the fiscal second and third quarters.

  • Nominations Open For The Outstanding Storage Person and Product Of 2008


    With 2008 fast drawing to a close biz-news.com is seeking YOUR help in choosing outstanding candidates for the titles of Man/Woman of the Year and Product/Service of the Year.

    We would like you to nominate an individual and/or product/service that you feel has contributed greatly to the Storage sector over the past 12 months.

    The winner will be selected from the nominations submitted by our readers – professionals and technology enthusiasts in the industry.

    Obviously, as this is a crowd-sourcing survey, we need your participation.

    Spreading word of this survey to friends and colleagues will also ensure a wider participation in the poll and will give a much more accurate result.

    If you have more than one nomination for either category you can make multiple submissions – but you can only vote once for any person or product.

    We will publish the results in early 2009 and share the raw data with the community. (Personal information about contributors will not be disclosed).

    After a year like 2008 there are plenty of good candidates – so please give it some thought and send your Man/Woman and/or Product nominations to us.

  • Blu-ray Storage Capacities To Keep Climbing


    Pioneer has announced plans for a one terabyte (1TB) Blu-ray disc that could be on the market by 2013.

    With a 400GB disc already ready for launch and a half-terabyte disc expected to follow shortly, there may be some questions about how such an abundance of storage can be used.

    One answer may be the advent of upgraded high definition standards that take up even greater amounts of disc space.

    The possibility for progressively increasing to higher densities was a major reason that Blu-ray won over its rivals.

  • INTERVIEW: Ten Criteria For Enterprise Business Continuity Software

    Jerome Wendt, president and lead analyst of DCIG Inc, an independent storage analyst and consulting firm, outlines 10 criteria for selecting the right enterprise business continuity software

    The pressures to implement business continuity software that can span the enterprise and recover application servers grow with each passing day.

    Disasters come in every form and shape from regional disasters (earthquakes, floods, lightning strikes) to terrorist attacks to brown-outs to someone accidently unplugging the wrong server.

    Adding to the complexity, the number of application servers and virtual machines are on the rise and IT headcounts are flat or shrinking.

    Despite these real-world situations, companies often still buy business continuity software that is based on centralized or stand-alone computing models that everyone started abandoning over a decade ago.

    Distributed computing is now almost universally used for hosting mission critical applications in all companies.

    However business continuity software that can easily recover and restore data in distributed environments is still based on 10 year old models.

    This puts businesses in a situation when they end up purchasing business continuity software that can only recover a subset of their application data.

    Organizations now need a new set of criteria that accounts for the complexities of distributed systems environments.

    Today’s business continuity software must be truly enterprise and distributed in its design.

    Here are 10 features that companies now need to identify when selecting business continuity software so it meets the needs of their enterprise distributed environment:

    • Heterogeneous server and storage support.
    • Accounts for differences in performance.
    • Manages replication over WAN links.
    • Multiple ways to replicate data.
    • Application integration.
    • Provides multiple recovery points.
    • Introduces little or no overhead on the host server.
    • Replicates data at different points in the network (host, network or storage system).
    • Centrally managed.
    • Scales to manage replication for tens, hundreds or even thousands of servers.

    The requirements for providing higher, faster and easier means of enterprise business continuity have escalated dramatically in the last decade while the criteria for selecting the software remains rooted in yesterday’s premises and assumptions.

    Today’s corporations not only need to re-evaluate what software they are using to perform these tasks but even what criteria on which they should base these decisions.

    The 10 criteria listed here should provide you with a solid starting point for picking backup continuity software that meets the requirements of today’s enterprise distributed environments while still providing companies the central control and enterprise wise recoverability that they need to recover their business.

    To read the full criteria please go to DCIG Inc.