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Storage news - June 2002storage market history |
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| Dantz Redefines
Backup with Retrospect 6.0 ORINDA, Calif. - June 25, 2002 - Dantz Development Corporation announced today the release of Dantz Retrospect 6.0 for Microsoft Windows. This major upgrade to the award-winning Retrospect product line provides small and medium-size enterprises with features that, until now, have only been available to large enterprises using backup software geared towards substantial IT staffs. Retrospect combines unsurpassed ease of use and speed of operations with built-in intelligence that automates the backup of file servers, desktops, notebooks, and line-of-business applications. "For the roughly 7.1 million small and mid-sized businesses with PCs, backup continues to be a major chore," said Raymond L. Boggs, Small Business/Home Office VP at market research firm IDC. "Many view it like going to the dentist important in theory, but often postponed until there's a problem." Boggs noted that having backup take place automatically insures that it gets done, especially in smaller firms. Retrospect eliminates the need to implement intricate backup strategies involving multiple backup tapes, sequences of full, incremental, or differential backups, and constant revisions to backup scripts which traditional backup products require to achieve reliable data protection. Retrospect takes care of the details so the administrator's job is much easier. Backups are much faster because Retrospect delivers 100% accurate restores without performing constant full backups. When Retrospect restores data it does so without returning unwanted deleted, renamed, or moved files to the restored hard drive. Traditional backup software avoids this problem only by requiring repeated full backups that waste time and media space. Retrospect automates the backup process to ensure that all computers get backed up, even if the time required to complete the backups exceeds the backup window, without requiring administrator intervention. Notebooks are backed up automatically whenever they connect to the company network. Retrospect's unique multi-volume open file backup capability enables back up of line-of-business applications such as databases, e-mail, CRM, accounting, ERP, web sites, and directories while live and in operation. Dantz Retrospect 6.0 will be available in mid summer of 2002. Pricing starts from $799 for a single server and unlimited networked desktops and notebooks. ...Dantz Development profile NSI Software Expands into Australia and New Zealand Hoboken, N.J.- June 25, 2002 - NSI Software today announced it has expanded its Xcelerate Partner Program into Australia and New Zealand with its newest international partner, idata Limited. This partnership enables NSI Software and idata Limited to address the significant demand for affordable data replication products, while tapping new revenue streams to support the growth of their own businesses. Enterprises worldwide are clamoring for cost-effective and reliable data replication products to maintain real-time copies of data and applications at off-site locations, ensuring business as usual operations. Effective immediately, idata Limited will answer this demand in Australia and New Zealand by reselling NSI's Double-Take" and GeoCluster' replication products to mid-to-large size enterprises. The addition of NSI's replication products to idata Limited's portfolio will play a critical role in idata Limited's push to penetrate the Australian market and up-sell its core New Zealand customer base where demand already exists. "We strive to provide our clients with the best data protection solutions available by partnering with innovative companies, such as NSI Software. NSI's reputation for developing quality replication products and commitment to helping its partners succeed were key motivators in our decision to join the Xcelerate Partner Program," said Robin Day, marketing director of idata Limited. "Double-Take is one of the most impressive data replication products we have reviewed. It provides affordable disaster protection without effecting existing backup solutions." ...idata, ...NSI Software profile See also:- Sun Resellers in Australia Reliaty Introduces First Data Protection Software Founded on NDMP AMHERST, N.H.- June 25, 2002 - Reliaty today introduced Reliaty Backup, the first data protection software developed on a NDMP foundation, allowing backup and recovery of data from any point within a storage environment to any device, regardless of the server and storage platforms or location of the connections. Reliaty Backup is the only data protection software to offer this seamless methodology for multiplatform environments, creating a new level of cost savings, ease-of-use, and faster data recovery. Reliaty Backup preserves information safely on secondary storage so that it can be recovered reliably in case of disaster, which is the key value users seek when designing a backup strategy. This standards-based software can be used with NAS devices, and also with UNIX, Linux, and Windows systems even if NAS is not present. Reliaty Backup can serve as the only data protection software required in heterogeneous environments. This provides enterprises with a new means to safeguard critical business information, reduce IT costs, improve data availability, minimize additional staff training, and speed information access. "Data protection software isn't about backing up data. It's about restoring data at the moment it's needed to ensure business continuity," noted Jim Ward, president of Reliaty. "Our goal in creating this new style of data protection software is to provide enterprises with the means they require to keep their business running." Reliaty Backup is the only data protection software to reduce media costs in a heterogeneous environment by offering the ability to intermingle data from different platforms on a single tape. Reliaty Backup optimizes data recovery performance by offering ISO/POSIX compliance, which allows reading and restoration with any standard TAR program; and direct-to-block positioning during recovery. Pricing for Reliaty Backup starts at $2500. The software will be available in July. ...Reliaty profile Western Digital Delivers Industry's Largest, Fastest Hard Drives With 200 GB Capacity and 7,200 RPM LAKE FOREST, Calif. - June 25, 2002 - Western Digital Corp. today introduced the industry's largest capacity hard drive - its WD Caviar 200 GB 7,200 RPM product. This milestone marks the fourth consecutive first-to-market 7,200 RPM hard drive delivered by Western Digital - which was first to deliver 7,200 RPM hard drives in 80, 100 and 120 GB capacities. WD Caviar 60 GB-per-platter 7,200 RPM hard drives will be offered in capacities ranging from 120 to 200 GB and will be available this July. To ensure quiet operation in noise-sensitive desktop/work station environments, Western Digital offers hard drives equipped with optional fluid dynamic bearing (FDB) motors. "Continued demand for the exceptional performance of 7,200 RPM hard drives at the highest capacities makes these hard drives an ideal choice for computing needs that range from top-of-the-line desktops and work stations to high-end IDE applications such as entry-level enterprise servers," said Richard E. Rutledge, vice president of marketing for Western Digital. ...Western Digital profile Imperial Technology Announces SANaccess Software for LUN Security in SANs EL SEGUNDO, Calif.- June 25, 2002 - Imperial Technology today announced the availability of SANaccess software for LUN security in SANs. SANaccess is a data security feature that creates access protection for data volumes residing on an Imperial File Cache Accelerator when used in a SAN. Previously only available only in the SANaccelerator™, SANaccess is now available as an optional feature for all MegaRam™ 2000 and 5000 products. "SANs are designed to allow access to common storage resources, but sharing storage resources in a SAN without any security exposes data to every server in the SAN," said Robert David president and CEO of Imperial. "In a properly implemented SAN, each server is only aware of storage resources to which it has a right to access. Without a comprehensive data security feature enabled, sharing storage resources within a heterogeneous SAN can compromise data security." Every Imperial File Cache Accelerator is designed to emulate one or more conventional disk drives. This capability allows the Imperial MegaRam to connect to a wide variety of server types and operating systems without special drivers. Imperial's administration toolset simplifies partitioning the File Cache Accelerator into as many as 64 Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs), making each LUN appear as a disk drive residing in the SAN. Emulating 64 LUNs allows the MegaRam to service application needs to 64 different servers in the SAN simultaneously. Operationally, SANaccess LUN security enables UNIX operating systems and Windows-based operating systems to simultaneously share access to MegaRam File Cache Accelerators in both small and large SAN environments. ...Imperial Technology profile, auto caching SSD appliances Zambeel Announces General Availability of the Aztera™ System, The World's First Adaptive Enterprise-Class Storage System FREMONT, Calif. - June 24, 2002 – Zambeel, Inc today announced general availability of the Aztera line of storage systems, innovative enterprise-class storage systems built on an entirely new distributed storage architecture. Aztera systems provide massive scalability in both capacity and performance, while maintaining a single-system management view. With a single system to manage at any scale, Aztera dramatically reduces the cost of growing and managing storage. The Aztera system scales in capacity from 3 terabytes to more than 200 terabytes, with system performance scaling to 2 GB/sec. The Aztera system provides a pool of computing resources that can be allocated to adapt to the needs of an enterprise. Aztera's innovative Enterprise Storage Resource Provisioning™ capability lets IT administrators provision these resources to different applications, projects, or groups of users as needed. The system automatically allocates resources to adapt to these different needs, and administrators "People sometimes assume SANs are the only way to build enterprise-level storage infrastructures, but Zambeel's Aztera products prove that NAS designs can be just as effective," said Marc Farley, storage expert and author of Building Storage Networks. "Aztera is fast, flexible, scalable, robust and most importantly, it has a fully integrated suite of powerful management tools. By combining data and storage management in a single, super-scalable, integrated system, Aztera exerts the optimal management leverage for flattening the cost of owning, maintaining and growing storage." The Aztera storage system is available immediately. An entry Aztera system with 7.5 terabytes of raw capacity is priced starting at around $300,000. ...Zambeel profile Seagate Launches Industry's First 60-GB-Per-Platter Disc Drive - Will Support Native Serial ATA Interface Technology in the Fall SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. - June 24, 2002 - Seagate today launched the Barracuda ATA V disc drive, introducing the most advanced data-density ever: it's the first hard drive to achieve 120 Gbytes using only two discs, giving Seagate a significant technology advantage in high-performance PC storage. Barracuda ATA V will also offer a native Serial ATA interface - a faster, simpler, more intelligent technology designed to replace today's Parallel ATA hard drive interface. Barracuda ATA V will begin shipping next month with the Ultra ATA/100 interface; the native Serial ATA option will be available this fall. Seagate and Intel are demonstrating the Barracuda ATA V with its native Serial ATA interface this week at PC Expo in New York. In the fall, Barracuda ATA V will feature native Serial ATA technology. Seagate's native technology enables Serial ATA's full 150-Mbytes-per-second transfer speed and adds no excess components or slow overhead to reduce performance. By contrast, Serial ATA "bridge" architectures must translate Parallel data streams into Serial data streams and back again - and may be limited by the speed of the Parallel ATA controller on the drive. Seagate will first ship the Barracuda ATA V with today's standard Ultra ATA/100 interface, and will then offer its native Serial ATA version in the fall as leading chip providers begin shipping Serial ATA discrete host controllers on add-in cards and motherboards. Together, these products will enable the PC and Consumer Electronics industries to begin a transition to Serial ATA products. ...Seagate profile Jobstor.com Launches a Job Board Designed Specifically for the Use of the Data Storage Industry NEW YORK, NY - June 24, 2002 - Jobstor.com a new job board, launched in May, has passed the milestone of displaying its first 500 data storage employment opportunities. Jobstor.com is dedicated exclusively for Data Storage experienced professionals seeking job opportunities within the top companies of the Storage industry. The new web site features the following services
Editor's comments:- during the peak dotcom boom, upto about a dozen specialist job sites were set up focusing on the storage market. With the dotbomb bust and the negative hiring spree which followed, they lost their reason to exist and most have disappeared. Although Jobstor.com was launched last month, I thought I'd wait till it has some significant content before bringing this to the attention of our readers. CNT Acquires UK Based Bi-Tech MINNEAPOLIS - June 24, 2002 - CNT today announced that it has acquired London, England - based, BI-Tech Solutions, a privately held, leading provider of storage management solutions and services. The acquisition further strengthens CNT's Storage Solutions organization, which provides companies with end-to-end storage solutions that deliver on requirements for data availability and management, business continuance and disaster recovery. The transaction is a stock purchase agreement for $12 million in cash, plus the assumption of approximately $3.6 million of liabilities and includes the acquisition of approximately $8.7 million of tangible assets. The agreement also includes an incentive payout, estimated to be approximately $15 million, based upon earnings over the next two years and has been approved by both companies' boards of directors. With the acquisition, CNT gains BI-Tech's family of integrated storage solutions including consulting, implementation, managed services, hardware and software. CNT also acquires BI-Tech's employees, with operations in the United Kingdom and Sweden. "BI-Tech has an impressive customer base, an excellent reputation and unique expertise in the storage solutions industry. This acquisition should be accretive immediately. It augments CNT's strong Storage Solutions offering, complements our acquisition of Articulent in April 2001 and provides us with a European presence in the storage solutions marketplace," said Tom Hudson, chairman, president and chief executive officer of CNT. "Over the last year, our solutions organization has grown substantially and we see this as a tremendous growth opportunity for the future. The acquisition of BI-tech enhances our portfolio of comprehensive storage solutions and gives us access to a broader base of customers and potential revenue. The end result is that CNT is a stronger enterprise storage networking company." ...CNT profile Pegasus Announces Support for Plasmon G-Series, Optical Libraries for Windows NT and Windows 2000 Platforms San Francisco, CA - June 24, 2001 - Pegasus Disk Technologies announced today that its InveStore Microsoft® Windows NT® and Windows 2000®-based Storage Management Software is now compatible with the latest Plasmon G-Series Magneto-Optical (MO) Libraries. InveStore v4.0 provides Microsoft Management Console GUI support, transparent drive letter access and a developer COM/DCOM based API for Plasmon's line of 9.1GB-based optical products under Windows 2000 Professional, Server, Advanced Server, and Datacenter Server. Paired with applications such as document imaging, workflow, COLD, records management, digital assets management, medical imaging, voice data recording and email archiving, InveStore Storage Management Software gives users the power to share, organize and safeguard vital corporate knowledge. "Pegasus delivers the software controls for library management on the current Microsoft Windows operating platforms. The result is unequaled ease of use, security and reliability for archival, backup, and Web-based storage applications," explained Roy Slicker, Pegasus President and CEO. "We are very pleased to have Pegasus as a supporting partner. The combination of Plasmon's G-Series optical products and Pegasus' InveStore, with its fast, reliable and easy-to-integrate solution for storing and accessing information, offers customers a tremendous value for their investment," comments Robert Clark , Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Plasmon. ...Pegasus Disk Technologies profile, ...Plasmon profile EMC Casts New Light on "Open" Storage Claims from Rivals June 24, 2002 - in a press bulletin today, EMC revealed that its biggest storage competitors are making little headway into the "open" storage market, in fact market data from Gartner, suggests that most of their sales are tied... EMC claims that some server vendors spend a lot of energy talking about "open" storage and "proprietary" storage. Accusing a competitor of being "closed" is a marketing weapon perfected in the age-old server vs. server battles. But does it reflect the current realities of the storage market? An analysis of Gartner Dataquest's latest assessment of the 2001 external RAID controller-based market (namely, open storage sold independent of a server that can interoperate practically with multiple operating systems) reveals that the server vendors still speak mainly one language, selling storage primarily to their own captive markets.
Editor's notes:- As you'd expect, the rest of this EMC bulletin goes onto say that EMC is the leader in those parts of the storage market with the highest growth potential, blah, blah... However, as we know from their imploding revenue results, that potential didn't actually translate into growth last year. The view of this publication (as we've said before) is that the competitive nature of the external storage market will most likely follow the historic pattern of the PC market, in which the market share of the biggest companies kept declining, while the category known as "others" eventually came to equal about 60% of the market. That's obviously not a view you would favor if you worked for EMC or still owned their shares. But the data revealed by EMC suggests that if you want to predict how well its main rivals will do in storage, the best indicator is their server sales prospects, rather than the clever design, or otherwise, of their storage ads. And that's a very interesting point. Imperial Technology Expands Operations into Asia Pacific Region EL SEGUNDO, Calif. June 24, 2002 - Imperial Technology announced today that it has expanded its presence in the Asia Pacific region with the opening of an Imperial sales office in Yokohama, Japan. The new office will enable Imperial to better support existing channel partners and is in response to growing demand in the region for Imperial¹s leading acceleration solutions. "The number of Imperial resellers in the Asian Pacific region has doubled over the past six months," said Imperial president and CEO Robert David. "The growth has exceeded expectations to a point where local management is a business necessity." Imperial's new sales office is located 30 minutes from Tokyo by train and will be under the guidance of Imperial's Managing Director of Asia Pacific, Muneo Kobayashi. Mr. Kobayashi has over 20 years experience in the storage industry and has worked extensively in Japan with OEM and channel sales. He will oversee Imperial resellers in Japan, Thailand, Korea, Taiwan, China, and Australia. "Companies in Asia are discovering the strategic advantage Imperial's products deliver in this competitive economy," said Kobayashi. "The devices eliminate I/O bottlenecks, reduce wait time, and allow users to perform more work without upgrading to faster servers or incurring higher CPU-based licensing fees. They represent an excellent value proposition." ...Imperial Technology profile Infineon Technologies and Micron Technology Announce Cooperation to Develop CellularRAM Munich, Germany/Boise, Idaho, USA - June 24, 2002 - Infineon Technologies AG and Micron Technology, Inc. today announced they have signed an agreement to collaborate in the development of specifications and providing multiple sources for CellularRAM memory, a new multi-generational family of low power Pseudo Static RAM (PSRAM) for wireless applications. This new type of PSRAM device is designed to meet the rapidly growing memory and bandwidth demand in future 2.5G and 3G handset designs, at a lower cost/bit ratio than current or proposed alternatives. Featuring SRAM-pin compatibility, refresh-free operation and extreme low power design, CellularRAM memory is a drop-in replacement for the asynchronous low power SRAM typically used in today's cell phone designs. CellularRAM is based on a single transistor DRAM cell versus a six-transistor (6T) SRAM cell, providing significant advantages over traditional SRAM. CellularRAM devices leverage all the technology and process advancements of commodity DRAM. The DRAM structure also results in a memory cell that is only one-tenth the size of a 6T SRAM cell using the same lithography node. The die size savings reduces the cost of equivalent density memory and enables larger memory sizes in wireless systems. The CellularRAM product family includes components with a SRAM-type interface for replacement applications and a new class of innovative products featuring a burst read and write mode that emulates a Flash interface. The products operate at clock rates as high as 108MHz, have an initial latency of 60 ns and achieve a sustained bandwidth of 210MB/s. The intent of the cooperative development agreement is to make CellularRAM memory a multi-sourced standard for the memory subsystems of next generation 2.5G handsets and entry-level 3G terminals. Both companies will produce pin- and function-compatible products based on a jointly developed specification. Each company will manufacture the products using their own process technology. ...Infineon Technologies profile, ...Micron Technology profile Emulex Now Trading on NYSE as "ELX" COSTA MESA, Calif. - June 24, 2002 - Emulex Corporation (NYSE: ELX) will begin trading today on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as "ELX." Trading on the NYSE under Emulex's new "ELX" ticker symbol begins today at 9:30 a.m. EDT, following an opening bell ringing ceremony on the floor of the Exchange with Emulex executives. Video footage of Emulex's bell ringing ceremony will be available to television networks and local affiliates within the continental U.S. and Canada via fiber line and satellite. Paul Folino, Emulex President and CEO, stated, "We believe that our position as an infrastructure leader in the storage networking market and our strong financial condition makes Emulex and the NYSE a great combination at this juncture in our history." ...Emulex profile |
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