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Linux Networx
Gets $40 million Funding
Salt
Lake City - November 4, 2004 - Linux Networx announced today a new
scalable storage technology, called the Xilo scalable storage system, that
combines storage devices, management software, and the most scalable file
systems into an easy-to-administer storage appliance.
The key
benefit of Xilo is its ability to pool capacity from separate storage devices
into a large resource, allowing large files to be distributed across multiple
storage devices for increased efficiency. Xilo also permits scalability in both
throughput and capacity to meet customers' future storage needs. Engineered
specifically for Linux Networx computing systems, Xilo directly addresses
performance and management issues associated with cluster storage. With
technologies designed to work together, customers can expect a reliable and
productive computing solution.
Linux Networx also announced today it
has closed $40 million in Series B funding. The funding will allow Linux Networx
to expedite the introduction of next-generation technologies that enhance the
productivity and efficiency of cluster computing. ...Linux Networx profile,
VC funds in storage
Spectra Logic Turns 25
BOULDER,
Colo. - November 4, 2004 - Spectra Logic celebrated its 25th year
anniversary in October.
The tape library and disk hardware
manufacturer originally produced and sold memory boards and later backup and
archival software. Nathan Thompson, Spectra Logic's founder and only CEO in
company history, founded the corporation in his University of Colorado, Boulder,
dormitory while studying in the department of engineering.
Founded 25 years ago by 19-year old Thompson, Spectra Logic has now
grown to 300 employees, with 17,000 tape libraries installed worldwide today.
The Boulder, Colo.-based corporation, known for its innovative, flexible
products that offer low TCO, has had numerous industry firsts:
1998 - First to offer all native Fibre Channel libraries
2003 - First to offer all-native iSCSI tape libraries 2003
Introduced TeraPack grouped media management
2004 - First to introduce removable RAID media integrated
within a tape library.
"Spectra Logic's associates are the
backbone of our 25 years of success," said Nathan Thompson, CEO of Spectra
Logic. "Spectra Logic has undergone several shifts during the last quarter
century, and I look forward to another 25 years."
...Spectra Logic
profile, Tape libraries,
Disk to disk backup
Editor's
comments:- Spectra Logic was founded the same year as EMC and Seagate -
storage history.
Globalstor's Video RAID Sustains 1,000MB/S
CHATSWORTH, CA - November 3,
2004 - During this year's HD Expo, Globalstor Data will introduce the
ExtremeStor-HD.
A low-cost, high-performance fault-tolerant
hi-definition video storage
server, the ExtremeStor-HD incorporates 24, 250GB hot-swappable SATA hard
drives for up to 6TB of local storage or 24, 400GB hot-swappable SATA hard
drives for up to 9.6TB. Using RAID 0, the ExtremeStor-HD is capable of
achieving over 1,000MB/sec sustained raw performance, or in excess of
600MB/sec using RAID 5.
"The ExtremeStor-HD is the ideal hi-definition server solution
for today's growing number of demanding video applications where anything less
than real time is unacceptable," said Scott Leif, President of Globalstor
Data. "The ExtremeStor provides unmatched performance and a level of
redundancy that practically assures zero downtime."
...Globalstor Data
profile, RAID systems
Swiss Army Knife Packs 0.5 Gigabytes
Bronschhofen,
Switzerland - November 3, 2004 - Swissbit announced today that the
memory capacity in the Swiss Army Knife made by Victorinox has been
increased to 512MB.
With this USB 2.0 flash memory it is
possible to present data to your family, friends or colleagues or to exchange
these data at high speed in an uncomplicated way. No matter when, no matter
where. The SecureLOCK software programmed on the SWISSMEMORY USB Victorinox
guarantees the security of your personal data and makes it almost as reliable as
a Swiss numbered account. A Flight Version of this gadget featuring USB Memory,
LED and ball-point pen is offered for airline passengers.
...Swissbit profile,
USB,
Flash Memory
Bit Sliced Storage Market Research
Editor:- November 3,
2004 - ACSL, publisher of STORAGEsearch.com has launched a new
custom market research service aimed at startups and small to medium sized
vendors who need market data to help their growth in emerging and disruptive
fast growing segments of the storage market.
Priced like an ASP or
web advertising, the custom market research service includes design, delivery
and custom reports with a starting price from $500.
The problem facing
storage start ups and companies moving into new emerging segments within storage
is that new markets are by definition too small and fragmented to attract
standard industry reports at the critical time when it's critical to achieve
first mover advantages. When segments reach one or two billion dollars in size
there's plenty of data for vendors to buy - but by then bigger vendors have
already taken notice of new technologies and the cost of securing market share
is much greater.
Our new data service leverages the same web resources
we use to deliver content and advertising to millions of storage readers and
packages custom market research into a price that's orders of magnitude below
focus groups or other types of web, phone or mail based research. ...more info,
...ACSL profile,
Market research
Imation's New 2GB Flash Drive
OAKDALE,
Minn - November 2, 2004 - Imation Corp. today announced it is
extending its line of Imation USB 2.0 Swivel Flash Drives with the addition of
its latest 2 gigabyte drive.
The new Imation 2GB
USB 2.0 Swivel Flash Drive
features a unique "never lose" swivel cap design that business users
and consumers can trust to protect their important files. The high-capacity
drive is ideal for transporting and sharing large business documents and
presentations, thousands of songs and photos, and multiple video files.
Imation's new 2GB flash drives are available for a MSRP of about $300.
...Imation profile,
Flash Memory
NetEx Gives iSCSI WANS 10x Speedup
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn -
November 2, 2004 - NetEx today announced a new storage application
throughput standard that eliminates the need for expensive and complex
networking equipment while solving TCP/FCIP/iSCSI/iFCP/FTP throughput issues
often associated with business-class WAN connections.
NetEx's
Hyper Powered IP provides the simplest and highest performing WAN platform for
accelerating the broadest range of storage applications in the industry. These
include EMC SRDF Adaptive Copy & SRDF/A, VERITAS Volume
Replicator/NetBackup, NetApp SnapNAP Mirror & Snap/Vault/Lock, IBM TSM and
associated applications such as Oracle DB RSync, Microsoft Exchange and many
others.
Hyper Powered IP leverages common IP networks while enabling
high-speed connections up to OC12 –as much as a 10x increase in
throughput for many applications. The new standard either works with or
replaces existing high-speed storage transport products and requires no changes
to servers/storage controllers, applications or network devices.
"Packet
loss is an inescapable issue wherever glass meets metal,"said Marc Staimer,
Founder of Dragon Slayer Consulting. "The result of this loss is greatly
reduced efficiency which no amount of compression will solve. Hyper Powered IP's
solution cluster, which includes packet loss eliminationmitigation, allows
storage applications to function over the WAN at an incredible unchained pace,
setting the bar for performance standards."
Hyper Powered IP's
unique application aggregation capability enables a number of replication
applications to run concurrently over a fully redundant, highly efficient common
IP infrastructure. In addition to storage networking applications, HyperIP
ensures that challenging data transfers are consistently completed on time
between mainframes and distributed servers for digital video and other
high-performance technical computing. Hyper Powered IP brings the same benefits
to extended
iSCSI targets, providing
better performance over distance, improved link utilizations and a shield
against packet loss. Hyper Powered IP is available immediately with MSRP
starting at $20,000.
...NetEx profile
InoStor Packs 4.8TB RAIDn into 2U
POWAY, Calif. -
November 2, 2004 - InoStor Corporation today announced its
next-generation Linux-based network storage appliances that feature patented
RAIDn technology.
Available in 1U and 2U form factors, with
storage capacities starting at 480GB scaling up to 4.8TB, InoStor's new
InteliNAS devices offer front-loading, hot-swappable SATA hard disk drives
supporting RAID 0, 1, 4, 5 and 0+1 as well as InoStor's RAIDn. The appliances
include complete data management capabilities including iRep replication to
facilitate data mirroring, snapshot technology and tape backup.
InteliNAS IU configurations provide storage capacities of 480GB,
640GB, 1.0TB, 1.2TB and 1.6TB in a rackmount package along with dual Gigabit
Ethernet ports, four hot swappable frontloading SATA hard drives and a 350W
power supply.
The 2U high-capacity devices offer storage capacities of 1.44TB,
1.92TB, 3.0TB, 3.6TB and 4.8TB in a 2U rackmount system. They include 12
hot-swappable SATA hard drives, dual 400W power supplies and dual Gigabit
Ethernet interfaces for rapid data reading and writing.
InteliNAS integrates seamlessly with Windows, UNIX, Macintosh and
Linux platform environments. Optional SCSI-connected autoloader or library tape
devices are available for easy backup/restore and offsite archiving. Prices
start at $2,899 MSRP and include a three-year parts and labor warranty with
advance exchange backup by free technical support.
...InoStor profile,
article:- RAIDn,
RAID systems
Hospital Nurses its Data with FilesX
Editor:- November 2, 2004
- a new case study article by FilesX describes how a New York hospital
eliminated the problems associated with restoring email from a tape system by
switching to a disk based backup using FilesX Xpress Manager software.
The
article also compares the time, resources and effectiveness of the old and new
systems. ...read
the article,
...FilesX profile
Exanet Claims SAN Performance at NAS Cost
New York - November 2, 2004
- Exanet, Inc. has achieved a record-breaking operations-per-second
(OPS) result on the industry-standard SPEC SFS benchmark with its NAS solution.
71,185 OPS were reached on a two-node cluster, and 139,061 OPS were reached on a
four-node cluster with ORT (operation response time) of 1.21 and 1.13
respectively. As previously reported, the Exanet EX600FC six-node cluster
reached a record-breaking 203,182 OPS result with ORT of 1.08. These results
demonstrate the exceptional linear performance scalability achievable with
Exanet solutions.
"The scalable Exanet SPEC SFS performance
results we witnessed are exceptional," said Brian Garrett, Technical
Director of ESG Lab. "An entry-level, two-node configuration outperformed
dual controller systems from EMC and NetApp in both operations per second and
response times. The lowest-tier ExaStore solution outperformed the highest
priced NetApp solution."
Traditionally, performance-demanding, mission-critical applications
have used SAN storage because of the high performance needed for
database-oriented applications. Until now, customers who have chosen NAS
solutions have sacrificed overall performance for ease of use and easy access to
information. With these industry-leading performance achievements, ExaStore
combines the benefits of both worlds.
...Exanet profile,
NAS,
SAN
BakBone Announces New VP Marketing
Reading,
UK - November 2, 2004 - BakBone Software today announced that Bharat
Kumar has joined the company as vice president of marketing.
Bharat
will be responsible for helping to define and fulfill BakBone's marketing
initiatives and business strategy to accelerate the worldwide adoption of its
data protection solutions and advance BakBone's market leadership in backup and
recovery for Linux.
"Bharat Kumar is an outstanding technical executive with an
extensive software background, solid global marketing experience, and brings a
wealth of expertise in establishing market leadership and growing market share
for both start-up companies and well-established businesses," said Jim
Johnson, president and CEO of BakBone (whose own appointment was announced
yesterday). "As we evolve BakBone to the forefront in data protection, we
continue to add experienced senior talent and depth to our executive team.
Bharat is the latest in a series of experienced executives to join BakBone since
the year began, and we look forward to the significant contributions he will
make to the Company and to our customers in the future."
Kumar joins BakBone from
DataCore Software,
where he led all aspects of the company's worldwide marketing activities.
Kumar's responsibilities included strategic market planning, product management,
channel marketing and business development and branding activities that promoted
DataCore to enterprise accounts as well as to the fast growing small to medium
business segments.
...BakBone Software
profile
Editor's comments:- there have been a lot of changes at
BakBone during the last month. New auditors - the old ones were let go due to
problems which involved a restatement of accounts. A new President and CEO
announced yesterday, and now a new marketing VP.
"Chip-Sandwich" Multiplies Memory x100
Munich,
Germany - November 2, 2004 - Using an innovative "chip-sandwich"
technique that involves face-to-face interconnection, Infineon Technologies
AG is able to design chip card ICs for use in mobile communications that
offer more than 100 times the memory capacity of today's chip cards,
while just doubling chip area.
The new chip card ICs will not only
deliver significant performance boosts, the company says, but they will enable
new applications for mobile phones and smart cards. Infineon presented the
world's first chip card security controller which uses this innovative
face-to-face technology, offers 1 megabyte of memory capacity, and is
manufactured in a 130 nanometer process technology, at the Cartes & IT
Security 2004 show in Paris today. Using the innovative face-to-face
interconnection technique and the company's existing technologies like EEPROM or
TWINFlash, Infineon can build an ISO-compliant chip card microcontroller
offering up to 20 MB of memory, based on demand, which is expected to be
available in the second half of 2006.
...Infineon profile,
Storage interface ICs
Procom's New Entry-level SATA NAS Filer
IRVINE, Calif.
- November 1, 2004 - Procom Technology, Inc. today introduced a
low-cost entry-level NAS filer in a 1U-high enclosure to provide up to 1.6
terabytes of storage capacity. |
| The NetFORCE 700L is a
SATA based NAS
appliance that comes with dual Gigabit Ethernet ports and hot-swappable SATA
drives. It was designed to address requirements of existing Procom partners for
a feature-rich NAS appliance with lower price points and higher storage
capacity. |
 |
Through the use of
Procom's ProMirror software option, organizations with satellite offices and no
local IT expertise can replicate the information generated at these locations to
a larger NetFORCE filer – at a remote site such as a corporate datacenter –
for disaster recovery, backup or other data management purposes. Procom's
sophisticated NetFORCE operating system offers advanced reliability features
such as a journalized file system to ensure data integrity and checkpoints for
rapid recovery of damaged or deleted files. Other functions include
cross-platform heterogeneous file sharing, NDMP-compliant backup, and SNMP
monitoring. The NF-700L is easy to install, maintain and operate. RAID and
system management are simplified by a Web-based user interface that allows
remote admin and monitoring from anywhere in the world.
...Procom profile,
NAS
Top 10 Storage Topics Viewed by Readers
Editor:- November 1, 2004 -
the most popular articles, subjects and company profiles viewed by STORAGEsearch
readers in October are listed today on our market research page.
There
were no new entries to the top 10 company list. NAS maker
Ingrasys Technology
returned to the #1 company slot. The recently published article on SAS written
by LSI Logic and Maxtor shot straight into the top 10 most popular articles
based on its first week on this website. Meanwhile
Solid state disks remained
the #1 most popular subject with readers and interestingly
Web based backup and
storage made its first appearance into the top 20 subjects for several
years, possibly driven there by storm force winds and hurricanes. Market research
BlueArc Trounces NetApp in NAS IOPS
SAN
JOSE, California - November 1, 2004 -
BlueArc Corporation today announced that its Titan SiliconServer has
achieved SPEC SFS benchmark results exceeding those of any network storage
solution on the market, utilizing a single system and single file system.
BlueArc's Titan SiliconServer posted record results for a single
server configuration on the Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC) System
File Server (SFS) test for network storage server performance. These results
were generated without resorting to unusual configurations - a tactic common
from other vendors.
A single Titan SiliconServer recorded 50,858 NFSv3
IOPS over a TCP network. This compares with Network Appliance's highest score of
36,063 NFSv3 IOPS over a TCP network with its dual-CPU FAS980 system and EMC's
highest score of 36,335 NFSv3 IOPS over a TCP network with their Celerra NS700.
A dual Titan SiliconServer recorded 101,571 NFSv3 IOPS over a TCP
network. This compares with Network Appliance's highest score of 68,139 NFSv3
IOPS over a TCP network with its dual system, quad-CPU FAS980 failover cluster,
and EMC's highest score of 71,482 NFSv3 IOPS over a TCP network with its dual
Celerra NS700 clustered system.
...BlueArc profile
FRAM Server Unfazed by Power Dropouts
COLORADO
SPRINGS, Colo. - November 1, 2004 - Ramtron International Corporation
announced today that Seventech, an Italian company, has selected Ramtron's
FM3808 ferroelectric random access memory for use in its innovative Merlino
embedded system board.
The Merlino board allows PC hardware to be
adapted to applications for which they were not originally designed. Potential
end-user applications include gaming machines where vital information requires
reliable data storage and fast retrieval.
"FRAM memories are similar to SRAMs in that they have fast
read/write times, but with the advantage of
maintaining
data in memory even during power failures," said Salvo De Luca, CEO of
Seventech. "By using FRAM's unique feature set, the Merlino board elegantly
resolves the problem of starting up application programs that are running on the
board during a power black-out. We can now restart the software from the exact
point at which it was interrupted."
Ramtron's FM3808 is a 256Kb parallel FRAM which can be written at
standard bus speeds versus EEPROM, which requires a 10-millisecond write delay
before new data can be registered. It features 10 billion write cycles,
compared to 1 million writes for EEPROM. ...Ramtron profile
Editor's
comments:- seems to me that FRAMs are the first genuine alternative to magnetic
core store - if anyone is old enough to remember that. | |
SSD articles
SSD history
SSD market research
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SSD articles
SSD efficiency
2.5" PCIe SSDs
Enterprise
SSD market silos
adaptive R/W &
DSP in SSDs
the Top SSD Companies in
Q2 2012
What do
enterprise SSD users want?
Where are we now
with SSD software?
How fast can your SSD
run backwards?
Failure
model pitfalls when analyzing SSDs
Baldness cures, diets and
SSD longevity
What makes
this enterprise SSD different?
The big market impact of SSD dark
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| Nibble: What Can We Learn
from Storage Leaders Whose Revenues are Declining? |
Editor:- November 1, 2004 - StorageSearch.com is
upbeat about the storage market, and there have been so many companies
reporting revenue growth this year that I set the entry point to our
Fastest Growing List
at 31% to keep the list manageable.
But can we also learn something,
or try to deduce what's happening, from companies, which in a growing storage
market, report declining revenue?
Declining storage revenue can
sometimes signal a changing pattern of technology or usage which it may be
important for you to know about. Or it can be just a blip - nothing to worry
about. So, I picked out some examples of companies, which are leaders in their
own field, but which have reported declining revenues during the most recent
quarter.
Seagate
- the world's leading maker of
hard disk drives -
reported revenue down 10%.
That's similar to the 9%
revenue decline reported by
Maxtor. Meanwhile
Western Digital
reported revenue up 15%.
So what's happening? It's a mixed
picture and several factors are at work here. First - disk manufacturers have
historically been lowering prices at a faster pace than they have been
increasing capacity. That means even if the volume of drives in the PC and
server markets increases - the disk revenues from the IT market as a whole may
still decline or stay flat. The other problem is that new markets for disk
drives - like digital cameras, and digital music players have mainly been using
Flash Memory instead of
the small form factor (1 inch and under) hard drives which manufacturers hoped
they would. For some disk manufacturers, the use of hard drives in tvs, games
and other consumer products accounts for about 10% of their revenue - but that
has slowed the downward revenue trend rather than turned it around.
Western
Digital has been more successful in getting its drives used in these new
consumer markets. WD's chairman and CEO, Matt Massengill, said "Personal
entertainment applications such as game consoles and digital video recorders,
as we continued to expand our presence in markets outside our traditional
stronghold of desktop PCs." But their figures show that Western Digital has
also been winning market share in the PC market.
Emulex - the world's
leading maker of Fibre-channel
adapter cards - reported revenue down 13%.
This doesn't
signify decreasing popularity of Fibre-channel technology, because Emulex's
main rival QLogic
reported revenue 2% up. Also the
iSCSI market has
been too small to make any dent in the Fibre-channel SAN market in 2004. And
market research company Dell'Oro
Group has predicted 11% annual growth for the FC host bus adapter market
for the next several years. We may see a short term blip in the market as users
wait to see what happens with 4Gbps products, like those sampling this month
from LSI Logic.
I've
been saying for years that the writing is on the wall for tape backup as nearly
everyone will transition to disk to disk backup in the next several years due to
its faster speed, lower cost and greater storage density.
As part of
this change, most tape library manufacturers have long ago introduced D2d
options within their product lines, although it is doubtful that many of these
will stand the price competition from pure
RAID systems makers.
However, bucking this trend is tape library maker
Overland Storage which
cited fast growth in its D2d products contributing to its 5% revenue growth
in the recent quarter.
Quantum's recent
acquisition of Certance
is part of a consolidation we're going to see more of as the tape market shrinks
down to about 5 companies in 2007. | | |
