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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 first week of March: Kasten Chase’s Assurency CipherShare receives enhanced cryptography features, SANRAD boosts its V-Switch line of IP SAN solutions, StoneFly Networks starts shipping its Backup Advantage solution for SMBs, LEGATO releases a new version of its DistkXtender 2000 HSM software, a new High-Capacity DVD spec is approved, and Tacit Networks acquires AttachStor’s patent and product portfolio.
Enhanced Cryptography Added to Kasten Chase’s Assurency CipherShare 3.0
Kasten Chase this week released the latest edition of its Assurency CipherShare secure collaboration and file-sharing solution. The new edition, version 3.0, is billed by the Mississauga, Ontario-based company as offering enhanced cryptography and new management features.
Specifically, three major enhancements make their debut in v3.0: the Kasten Chase Cryptographic Engine (KCCE), which utilizes Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) for all public/private key operations; a Policy Manager that provides Security Officers with a configuration utility to set key security parameters for an entire workgroup; and User Passphrase and Account Reset tools for recovering secure information in the event a user forgets their passphrase or leaves a working group.
Assurency CipherShare combines end-to-end security with sophisticated document management features, enabling organizations to establish secure, virtual workspaces across network and organizational boundaries to enhance workgroup productivity. Employing strong authentication, granular access control, and transparent data encryption, CipherShare protects collaborative information on servers, on desktops, on mobile computing platforms, and at all points in between, according to the company.
“Assurency CipherShare 3.0 helps organizations eliminate the business risk associated with sharing valuable or sensitive information in collaborative working relationships,” says Michael Milligan, Chief Executive Officer of Kasten Chase. “The solution further reinforces our message to corporate executives that – as the perimeter of your enterprise continues to shift – you must protect the data first.”
Assurency CipherShare is priced on a client/server basis, with server software licenses ranging from $6,425 (support for up to 500 client ‘seats’) to $19,275 (up to 1,500 seats). Assurency CipherShare Client Software licenses range from $2,150 for a 10 client seat bundle to $21,500 for a 100 seat bundle. Additional information on Assurency CipherShare is available from Kasten Chase’s web site.
SANRAD Boosts V-Switch Line of IP SAN Solutions
SANRAD Incorporated has released version 2.0 of StoragePro Services for its V-Switch family of IP SAN solutions. New features in v2.0 include snapshot, DataCloning, FastCopy, and support for RADIUS authentication.
SANRAD V-Switch 3000
The new data duplication and protection features enable SANRAD customers to eliminate the backup window for production volumes with the new volume snapshot feature and accommodate for data growth with on-the-fly volume expansion. A new DataCloning feature enables customers to maintain up to four mirrored copies of any volume for data protection.
New security and discovery enhancements in version 2.0 include RADIUS support to authenticate a secure iSCSI connection, iSNS and SLP iSCSI client support to ensure iSCSI target discovery for continuous data access, and an enhanced Access Control List (ACL) to securely bind and set read/write policies for individual storage volumes to a single host or group of hosts.
“We’re very pleased to be releasing this new version of StoragePro for our V-Switch product line,” says SANRAD CEO, Shaul Gal-Oz. “We are once again delivering on our promise to provide enterprise SAN capabilities to the IP SAN market. These features are just a hint of what’s coming down the road
for our customers.”
The StoragePro IP SAN management software is bundled with and runs inside every SANRAD V-Switch and requires no host agents or special licenses. [Additional Information]
Additional Briefs for 3/5/04:
StoneFly Ships Backup Advantage for SMBs
LEGATO Releases New Version of DiskXtender 2000
Additional Briefs for 3/5/04:
Enhanced Cryptography Added to Kasten Chase’s Assurency CipherShare 3.0
SANRAD Boosts V-Switch Line of IP SAN Solutions
StoneFly Ships Backup Advantage for SMBs
Few are the small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) that command the IT resources to deploy enterprise-class storage systems. With those organizations in mind, Stonefly this week started taking orders for its latest SMB backup and recovery offering (as first reported in the 10/24/03 edition of Enterprise Storage Snapshots).
Dubbed StoneFly Backup Advantage, the hardware and software combo is the result of a strategic partnership between StoneFly and CommVault Systems. Backup Advantage offers fledgling enterprises a way out of the inefficiencies and perils of relying on direct-attached storage (DAS) .
The IP-based storage product is comprised of the company’s Storage Concentrator i3000 and CommVault’s Galaxy Express software to provide local and remote backup, replication, and virtualization capabilities. Together they form the basis of a system that auto-detects the network environment and provides businesses with push-button ease of initiating a slew of storage chores, such as automated backup (to disk and/or tape).
StoneFly’s Storage Concentrator i3000
The i3000 appliance, which made its debut in October, effectively provides a gateway to scalable IP SANs. Built around a 3GHz Intel Xeon processor, the storage router melds into its 1U chassis the benefits of an iSCSI router, bridge, and provisioning engine for managing virtualized capacity over IP SANs.
Staying true to the firm’s flexible storage value proposition, the i3000 can serve as the lynchpin to differing applications such as extending FC (Fibre Channel) SANs, disk-to-disk backups, data replication across LAN and WANs, and direct-attached storage to SAN migrations.
CommVault’s contribution is Galaxy Express software. The storage software coders at the Oceanport, N.J.-based firm specialize in backup, recovery, and migration software for corporations. Serving the SMB marketplace, it turns out, proved a natural extension of the work they were accustomed to producing for high-end customers.
Based on the enterprise-level Galaxy Backup and Recovery software, Galaxy Express has been tailored for SMBs by whittling down the core functionality that smaller, or in many cases non-existent, IT departments require when backing up data over IP SANs. By forgoing high-end features such as job prioritization and networked-attached storage (NAS) support, the companies have crafted a manageable suite that covers the basis of the majority of SMBs.
As a business grows and storage requirements grow in complexity, Galaxy Express can adopt many of the features of its big brother via software upgrades.
The StoneFly Backup Advantage with 1TB ATA disk storage solution is available for shipping starting this month at a price of $29,795.
- StoneFly and CommVault Team to Provide Cost-Effective Disk-Based Backup
- StoneFly Seeks to Jumpstart IP SAN Market with Storage Concentrator i3000
- StoneFly Introduces Windows Server 2003 to Affordable IP Storage
LEGATO Releases New Version of DiskXtender 2000
LEGATO Software, a division of EMC Corporation , has upgraded its DiskXtender 2000 (DX 2000) storage management software with integration and support for IBM Tivoli TSM and StorageTek ACSLS 7.0, as well as strengthened integration with EMC Centera Content Addressed Storage (CAS) to provide a highly resilient storage solution for regulatory compliance. The new release, version 5.5, also adds support for new tape, DVD, and DVD-R media devices from ADIC, Hewlett Packard, Kubota, Panasonic, Qualstar, Seagate, and Sony.
DiskXtender 2000 is a Windows-based hierarchical storage management (HSM) application that automatically moves infrequently accessed data to more cost-effective storage, maintaining transparent access to the user and associated applications, according to Legato. The software is offered as part of LEGATO’s suite of Intelligent Data Management solutions, which are designed to play an integral part in an organization’s Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) strategy for meeting the challenges of rapid storage growth, regulatory compliance, shrinking backup windows, and rising storage management costs.
“The ability to classify and align the value of data with the most cost-efficient storage medium is vital to gaining the benefits of an ILM strategy,” says Victoria Grey, vice president, Business Continuance, LEGATO Software. “DX 2000’s powerful HSM capabilities enable businesses to significantly reduce storage acquisition costs and management overhead without compromising service levels, and quickly protect and recover their environments. This solution is perfect for those customers looking for measurable and immediate ROI.”
LEGATO DiskXtender 2000 version 5.5 is immediately available. [Additional Information]
Additional Briefs for 3/5/04:
Enhanced Cryptography Added to Kasten Chase’s Assurency CipherShare 3.0
SANRAD Boosts V-Switch Line of IP SAN Solutions
Additional Briefs for 3/5/04:
Enhanced Cryptography Added to Kasten Chase’s Assurency CipherShare 3.0
SANRAD Boosts V-Switch Line of IP SAN Solutions
StoneFly Ships Backup Advantage for SMBs
LEGATO Releases New Version of DiskXtender 2000
High-Capacity DVD Spec Approved
A/V enthusiasts are salivating at the thought of discs that pump movies in all of their high-definition grandeur to their stylishly thin plasmas and LCD televisions or pricey projectors. IT pros, on the other hand, can’t help but wonder how much storage they’ll be able reclaim by backing up gigabytes of data onto high-capacity DVDs.
They may all soon get their wish.
Current DVD media offers storage capacities of just 4.7GB. While generous in comparison to CDs, there’s no such thing as too much space for ardent archivists and administrators whose mantra is “backup, backup, backup.”
A new standard adopted by the DVD Forum is paving the way for rewritable HD-DVD (High Definition DVD or High Density DVD) hardware and media that features 20GB of space on a single side of the familiar 120mm diameter discs.
The specification, HD DVD-ROM format version 0.9, primarily developed and pushed by Toshiba and NEC, was agreed upon during the forum’s meeting this week in Tokyo. Though of little concern to storage admins, the read-only version holds up to 15GB of data.
The jump in storage space is due to the use of a blue laser that operates at a shorter wavelength (405 nm). This allows burners to pack more of the miniscule ruts that make up the 1’s and 0’s of digital data onto the surface of a disc. Toshiba and NEC pack both red and blue lasers, with a single lens servicing both, for backward compatibility.
DVD Forum’s approval of the spec gives HD DVD-ROM some momentum, but the battle for next-generation DVD storage is far from over. Its biggest challenger is Sony-backed Blu-ray technology, which also relies on blue lasers but is incompatible with HD DVD. Blu-ray enjoys support from industry heavyweights like Dell and HP.
Since last year, Sony has been shipping Professional Disc for DATA (PDD) drives and media for enterprise storage customers. While based on blue laser technology that yields 23GB per disk, the company points out that the drive hardware and cartridge-encased media is not to be confused with the forthcoming Blu-ray format.
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Tacit Networks Acquires AttachStor’s Product Portfolio
Tacit Networks this week announced the purchase of the intellectual property and patent portfolio of Attachsoft, Inc., commonly known as AttachStor. AttachStor’s email storage management technology will be integrated into the South Plainfield, N.J.-based company’s products, with a market-ready solution expected to be available in 2005.
AttachStor’s technology is designed to solve the core problems of attachment storage and access for enterprise email systems such as Microsoft Exchange. By providing true single-copy storage of email attachments throughout the network, the technology increases performance of email attachments while lowering total cost of ownership of email systems by 25% to 40% annually, AttachStor claims.
Tacit Networks’ technology eliminates roadblocks due to WAN performance and reliability limitations, and enables central and remote offices to operate as a virtual, worldwide LAN over the WAN, with key benefits for typical remote applications such as storage, WAN and server consolidation, backup/restore management, and business continuity.
“This acquisition extends the reach of Tacit’s storage consolidation solutions to include email attachments. We continue to see a bright future for common-sense storage management technologies that improve storage efficiency and reduce costs. That is the Tacit value proposition in a nutshell, and the AttachStor technology only expands their capability to deliver solutions with measurable business value,” states storage consumer advocate and CEO of Toigo Partners International, Jon Toigo.
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