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Enterprise Storage Snapshots offers a weekly wrap-up of what’s going on in the storage industry.Here are our storage news highlights for the second week of February: Quantum commences shipping SDLT 600 tape drives in its tape automation libraries, LSI Logic launches its dual-channel Ultra320 PCI-X SCSI RAID solution, BroadSpire unveils a new Disaster Recovery service tailored to SMBs, and Finisar’s NetWisdom/Xgig SAN Monitoring and Analysis solution joins Brocade’s Fabric Aware Program.
Quantum this week commenced shipping SDLT 600 tape drives in its tape automation libraries. Originally announced in October by the company, which called the drives “the biggest, fastest, and cheapest super drives on the midrange tape block,” the SDLT 600 drives boast 50% greater capacity than LTO2. And with transfer rates of 72 MB/s, they’re also 20% faster, too.
Quantum SDLT 600
“Quantum is pleased to be at the forefront of delivering new and comprehensive drive technology and tape automation choices to our customers,” says Rob Pickell, vice president of worldwide marketing for Quantum’s Storage Systems Business Unit. “By delivering SDLT 600 with our automation libraries, customers have the option of new industry-leading capabilities as they determine the optimal combination of reliability, performance, and capacity that best meets their current and future needs.”
All SDLT 600 tape drives include the built-in intelligence of DLTSage, a suite of predictive diagnostic and management tools designed to help ensure that data backups are completed successfully and that both drives and media can be properly managed by IT administrators to prevent system outages.
The SDLT 600 is also backward-read compatible with the SDLT 320, SDLT 220, and DLT VS160 drives, and also offers an upgrade path to the enterprise-class SDLT 1200 and SDLT 2400.
Quantum will immediately ship SDLT 600 drives in its midrange M-Series tape libraries and in its P-Series enterprise tape libraries through its network
of OEM, channel, and value-added reseller partners. The company also intends to ship the new drive in its L-Series autoloader family starting next quarter. [Additional Information]
LSI Logic Launches Dual-Channel Ultra320 PCI-X SCSI RAID Solution
LSI Logic this week started shipping its dual-channel Ultra320 SCSI PCI-X RAID storage adapters to the distribution channel markets.
The new MegaRAID SCSI 320-2X adapters will offer mid-range servers and performance workstations a highly flexible, half-size PCI-X form factor RAID solution for environments requiring maximum bandwidth, performance, and data protection, according to the Milpitas, Calif.-based company.
MegaRAID SCSI 320-2X Storage Adapter
“LSI Logic’s MegaRAID SCSI 320-2X offers customers a robust and powerful RAID solution designed around a high-speed PCI-X host interface for maximum data throughput and fault tolerant data protection,” says Luca Bert, director of product and program management with LSI Logic’s RAID Storage Adapters Division. “LSI Logic’s leadership and expertise in delivering proven, high-performance host-based RAID technology has made us the preferred choice of the industry’s premier systems manufacturers.”
The MegaRAID SCSI 320-2X includes support for two internal SCSI connectors offering fault tolerant OS and data storage, as well as two external connectors for additional data storage requirements. New data protection features employed by the MegaRAID adapters include Patrol Read for enhanced detection of physical device failure and Read Error Recovery from secondary drive failures during rebuilds.
An option to field install a battery backup unit for additional fault tolerant data protection is also available for the adapter. Additional information, as well as contact information for sample inquiries, is available at http://www.lsilogic.com/contacts/index.html.
Additional Briefs for 2/13/04 on Page 2:
BroadSpire Seeks to Secure SMBs
Finisar Joins Brocade’s Fabric Aware Program
Additional Briefs for 2/13/04 on Page 1:
Quantum Ships SDLT 600 DrivesLSI Logic Launches Dual-Channel Ultra320 PCI-X SCSI RAID Solution
BroadSpire Seeks to Secure SMBs
BroadSpire this week unveiled a new Disaster Recovery (DR) service tailored to helping small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) maintain and protect their web sites, web-based applications, email, and instant messaging communication during and after a disaster.
“Companies rely heavily on their web sites and web-based applications — in fact, many businesses would be crippled without them,” states Suresh Srinivasan, president, BroadSpire. “Yet whatever their size, many companies don’t have a plan in place that would keep these business-critical functions running properly in case of disaster.
A recent survey from Imation Corp. found that about 30 percent of companies lack a formal disaster recovery strategy. The survey also revealed that 64 percent of companies say their data backup and disaster recovery plans have significant vulnerabilities.
BroadSpire’s DRP Toolkit focuses on providing the proper procedures and technology to deliver a robust Disaster Recovery framework. The service includes a backup email system; a “hot” standby email system for ensuring communication during disasters; a secure, web-accessible company contact list that’s securely hosted within one of BroadSpire’s global data centers; an IM platform to serve as the critical messaging system between all employees when disaster strikes; and the use of BroadSpire’s geographically diverse DNS and a dedicated server to allow corporate web sites to stay online should a disaster transpire.
“Proper security means taking precautions in advance of a threat, not when the threat is imminent and it’s obviously too late,” says Srinivasan. “Companies should focus on both procedural practices and deploying the right technology. Procedures and technology go hand-in-hand for sound security, which is why we’ve tapped both disciplines in developing our disaster recovery offering.”
Customized quotes for BroadSpire’s Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) Toolkit are available upon request. Additional information is available from the BroadSpire web site.
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Finisar Joins Brocade’s Fabric Aware Program
Finisar Corporation’s NetWisdom/Xgig SAN Monitoring and Analysis solution has been verified by Brocade
as interoperable with Brocade-based Storage Area Networking (SAN) infrastructure, according to the testing requirements of the Brocade Fabric Aware Program, an end-to-end interoperability initiative for SANs.
Finisar NetWisdom
SAN Monitoring Solution
Testing was conducted at Brocade’s interoperability labs, facilities designed for supporting end-to-end interoperability and performance testing of SAN products in multi-vendor and large fabric SAN environments. The Brocade Fabric Aware Program has added more than forty members since its launch in 2000, according to the San Jose, Calif.-based company.
“The Brocade Fabric Aware program and its extensive testing criteria enables Finisar to offer well tested solutions across the widest range of operating environments. It is an important step in ensuring that end users are offered highly interoperable solutions for their high availability, multi-vendor storage networking environments,” says Kevin Cornell, Sr. Vice President, General Manager Network Tools Division. “This achievement validates Finisar’s commitment to providing interoperable products for present and future SAN deployments.”
Finisar’s NetWisdom/Xgig monitoring and analysis solution provides real-time, end-to-end monitoring and analysis of all the switches and devices in a SAN fabric. The vendor-independent solution monitors SANs 24x7x365, alerting administrators via triggers and alarms (phone, pager, or email) when SAN performance falls below specified levels. Finisar’s Xgig analyzer is then deployed to drill down and pinpoint the root cause of the degradation in the SAN and provide detailed explanations of the problem — and how to fix it.
“We are pleased that Finisar has successfully completed the Fabric Aware testing with Brocade fabric switches in multi-vendor SAN environments,” says Jay Kidd, Brocade CTO, Infrastructure Systems Group. “Storage area networks are being deployed worldwide at a rapid rate as a scalable, high performance networking foundation for storage environments. The Fabric Aware program is an example of our continued commitment to delivering end-to-end interoperability to SAN customers.”
- Finisar Serves Up Suite of Enterprise SAN Performance Tools
- Finisar’s Xgig SAN Analyzer Adds Gigabit Ethernet Support
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