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SAN (Storage Area Networks)

see SAN image in Megabyte cartoon
Megabyte had recently seen the movie
City Slickers and was experimenting with
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This page is focused on traditional fibre-channel SAN companies - look elsewhere for - IP SAN (iSCSI and FCIP)
the RamSan-440 is a 4U RAM SSD delivering 600,000 random IOPS - click for more info
RamSan-440 Enterprise Solid State Disk
512GB RAM SSD, 600,000 IOPS
from Texas Memory Systems
SAN History - the First Decade
SAN Applications - classic article
the Solid State Disks Buyers Guide
Tuning SANs with Solid State Disks
the pros and cons of using SSD ASAPs
A Storage Architecture Guide - classic article
SAN training / SAN software / SAN switches
Fibre-channel adapters / Fibre-Channel SSDs
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SAN news
New Integrity Tool for Old Tape Archives

Editor:- January 18, 2010 - Crossroads Systems today announced details of ArchiveVerify - a new monitoring option for its ReadVerify Appliance that safeguards the future readability of data backed up on tape.

“In our experience, the Achilles’ heel of a data recovery strategy is often the uncertainty of the data’s readability, and this single point of failure can render then entire restore process useless,” adds Bernd Krieger, Managing Director, at Crossroads Europe.

Editor's comments:- Crossroads was originally a specialist in the SAN router business. In recent years it has done a lot of work in the area of storage reliability. I've read lots of their whitepapers which describe their research and products addressing data integrity. Although there has been a historic trend for users to migrate away from tape to disk backup - many super users of huge tape libraries (with the biggest archives) will be the last to migrate away - due to logistics and cost. It's those kind of users who can benefit most from automated tools or services which increase the data integrity they achieve and cut down media waste and unrecoverable events.


New Directory for AoE Storage

Editor:- January 15, 2010 - StorageSearch.com today published a new directory for AoE (ATA-over-Ethernet) Storage.


$9 million Funding Round for flash SSD Enabled SAN Backup

Editor:- November 18, 2009 - Axxana announced it has secured $9 million Series B investment led by Carmel Ventures.

Axxana's existing investors, Gemini Israel Funds and the serial entrepreneur Moshe Yanai, also participated in the round.

The funds will be used to accelerate the adoption of The Phoenix System - the first "Black Box" Enterprise Data Recorder which was demonstrated at EMC World in May 2009.

"Axxana's EDR brings a disruptive solution that is well poised to transform the entire storage replication market and create a whole new category within it," said Ronen Nir, Partner at Carmel Ventures. "We are impressed with Axxana's strong founding team and their achievements so far, including impressive endorsement by leading storage vendors worldwide."

Editor's comments:- Axxana's solution is a lossless data recovery system which sits on the SAN and records data into a rugged flash SSD-enabled, locally situated, data survival box. Although Axxana talks about it "complementing" other types of data protection - such as offsite / online backup my gut feel is that if the product shows itself to be usable and reliable in a wide range of environments - it will set a new standard for backup which will supercede anything possible with rotating disk backup systems or tape.

The clearest explanation is in Axxana's datasheet (pf) from which I've taken these snippets.

"Axxana's solution combines concepts used in airplane Flight Data Recorders (Black Box) with newly developed materials and technologies to create a hardened "Enterprise Data Recorder" storage system capable of withstanding extreme conditions to preserve business data in the event of a disaster... The Phoenix system was designed to survive calamitous events such as Earthquake, Weather, Floods, Fire, and the consequences of a terror attack. The system was successfully tested and meets international standards for various threat scenarios."


ASAPs Webinar

Editor:- November 10, 2009 - Dataram is running a webinar next week (November 18) - Navigating the Maze of Solid State Storage Solutions.

The company says viewers will discover - "How to better gauge your storage traffic to identify bottlenecks and areas where solid state storage can provide a day 1 positive ROI."

Editor's comments:- as I said earlier - StorageSearch.com will soon publish a new guide to ASAPs (Auto-tuning SSD Accelerated Pools of storage) - and I'm rounding up content and comments on this subject. But the webinar, above, takes place before our new guide will be published.


Expect 16GFC by 2011 - says FCIA

Editor:- October 20, 2009 - the Fibre Channel Industry Association announced its has completed the technical work on 16Gb/s Fibre Channel (16GFC) - which provides a natural value migration from 8GFC.

Product roll-outs are anticipated in 2011 according to FCIA Chairman - Skip Jones.

Editor's comments:- I first published a directory of Fibre-channel adapters way back in 1994. The first FC connected storage array product listed in that was the SPARCstorageArray from Sun Microsystems.

It's reassuring that users in the FC market can anticipate another level of performance evolution - but FC is no longer a growth market. So this could be the last post for FC - just as 15K RPM was the end of the road for hard disks.

For dispersed systems ethernet based storage (NAS) long ago became the dominant network storage connect - while for local use and higher performance InfiniBand and PCIe have taken hold in distinct functional pockets.


Dataram eliminates waits for the SSD Hot Shot / Hot Spot Engineer

Editor:- September 28, 2009 - Dataram launched the XcelaSAN - a fast 2U rackmount flash SSD with 450,000 random IOPS performance (assuming 50/50 R/W and 4k blocks), and upto 8x 4Gbps FC ports - aimed at the SAN application acceleration market. Pricing starts at $65,000 for a unit with approx 360GB internal flash, of which 128GB is effectively used as a cache.

"It is now well understood that the benefit of a solid state infrastructure for compute-intensive environments is higher application performance with less equipment and lower operational costs," said Jason Caulkins, Dataram Chief Technologist. "The question is no longer 'How can I benefit from solid state storage?' but 'How do I best implement solid state in my existing infrastructure?' With XcelaSAN, we enable organizations with performance intensive applications to seamlessly add a dynamic, intelligent solid state storage tier to their existing SAN environment."

Editor's comments:- At 1st glance this product looks like many others which have aimed at the traditional market of SAN users. But its revolutionary design opens a new market which has been inaccessible to traditional FC SSD vendors. Dataram's product includes proprietary software - which does away with the need for an SSD expert engineer to identify hotspots and relocate critical data. The company says the XcelaSAN will automatically learn and self optimize during the 1st few hours of operation - and it will maintain application speedups even when applications and loads change - which is not possible with human tuned systems.

The search for a self tuning agnostic SSD software layer which sits between a SAN server and conventional rotating disk bulk storage has been the Holy Grail of SSD oems for over a decade. None have actually achieved it - till now. Although many vendors have developed semi-automated tuning kits and strategies for common applications - they require considerable expertise on the part of the applications engineer to make them work well. That has slowed down the adoption rate of SSDs in many midsized organizations which don't have a big enough installed base to attract the start SSD talent to look at their problems. And it's also why SSD accelerators, have not been viable as a reseller product.

When I spoke to Dataram's CTO, Jason Caulkins, I was impressed by the depth of marketing thinking behind the new product launch.

Dataram realized that simply launching a me-too SSD box would have an uncertain outcome in a market that's already so crowded. And Dataram's corporate memory goes back over 30 years to pioneering SSDs for minicomputers which they launched in 1976. But all memory companies know that in the future SSDs will use more memory than traditional markets - such as server or pc motherboards. So it's important to stake out ground in the SSD market.

I asked - where did the technology come from? Jason said some of it came from Dataram's acquisition of Cenatek - where he had already been thinking about the SSD business model problem for many years. With much bigger resources available after Dataram's acquisition - he's had teams of software engineers working on the XcelaSAN concepts and licensed essential glue where needed.

Will it work? Dataram says the XcelaSAN has been tested and working in customer sites. Product shipments in the US start in the next quarter. And the product is storage agnostic - meaning the customer can replace their SAN arrays at a future date and retain the acceleration speedup. XcelaSAN seems to offer a viable route for mid-budget user enterprises - who have been neglected by SSD vendors for economic reasons - to join the march of the SSD Revolution.

Is it competitive? - If you use my quick and dirty magic number for SSD sever accelerators - (write IOPS divided by cost per TB) - it's in the same order of magnitude as leading PCIe SLC flash SSD cards - so it's definitely worth a look.


ATTO Demos 6,400MB/s HBA at IBC

Editor:- September 10, 2009 - ATTO Technology is demonstrating its 6Gb/s SAS HBAs and 8Gb/s Fibre Channel HBAs this week at IBC in Amsterdam .

Demos include a quad-channel card that delivers the fastest available Fibre Channel data transfer rate of 6,400MB/s. Storage Events, Record Breaking Storage


TMS Acquires SAN IP from Incipient

Editor:- September 8, 2009 - Texas Memory Systems has expanded its IP base with the acquisition of data management patents and source code from Incipient.

"The patents and software provide Texas Memory Systems with a new set of tools for virtualisation and storage management that complement our solid state storage systems," said Woody Hutsell, President at Texas Memory Systems. "The newly-acquired technology will accelerate our development of new high-performance storage that meets the demanding and complex needs of our enterprise customers."

Texas Memory Systems has not acquired any interest in Incipient, Inc. Both companies remain independent.


EMC Acquires Kazeon

Editor:- September 1, 2009 - EMC today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Kazeon Systems.

Core to Kazeon's eDiscovery attractiveness is its ability to handle data that resides anywhere in the enterprise environment - including content on laptops, desktops, content management repositories, email archives and file shares.


RAID Systems Get 2TB WD Drives

Editor:- September 1, 2009 - Dot Hill and Pillar Data Systems are in the 1st wave of companies who have recently started volume shipments of RAID systems using 3.5" 2TB 7,200 RPM hard drives from Western Digital.

The new drives were announced in April 2009.


Unplugging Sun's Customer Base

Editor:- July 31, 2009 - an article in Infoworld says Sun Microsystems' customers are being targeted by IBM and HP who are preying on customers' doubts about Sun's long term hardware strategies under Oracle's ownership.

Author Jon Brodkin writes - "Sun customers were already showing a willingness to switch" - even before these targeted Sun-away campaigns. ...read the article, SPARC Product Directory


91% of Compellent's Customers Want to Evaluate SSDs

Editor:- June 17 , 2009 Compellent today announced results generated through attendee polling conducted at its annual customer conference.

91% of business partners and 78% of customers responded important, very important or critical when asked, "What is your level of interest in evaluating SSDs in your environment?"


2 New Storage Interface Standards

Editor:- June 11, 2009 - this month there have been 2 developments on the storage standards front.

Version 2.0 of ExpressCard - will be 10x faster than the previous version. This will mainly benefit ExpressCard SSDs.

FCoE is now a draft standard - ...read the (unreadable) T11 document (pdf). If, like me, you ever wondered what the difference was between this and the much older FCIP - this 2007 InfoWorld article explains.


Texas Memory Systems Teams with IBM to Boost Storage Performance

Editor:- June 2, 2009 - Texas Memory Systems today announced its RamSan-500 rackmount SSD system has been certified interoperable with IBM's System Storage SVC.

"IBM SVC customers have been looking for ways to improve the performance of their applications using RamSan SSD," said Woody Hutsell, President of Texas Memory Systems. "Texas Memory Systems and IBM consistently top Storage Performance Council performance benchmark audits, and both companies deliver broad interoperability for heterogeneous IT environments. So we think customers will welcome the news that the compatibility of the RamSan-500 and the SVC has been thoroughly tested and certified interoperable."


FalconStor Claims Fastest Deduped Disk Backup

Editor:- June 1, 2009 - FalconStor Software today claimed that it now delivers the fastest backup and deduplication time in the industry.

Using a 100TB test bed connected to a single cluster of 2 FalconStor VTL nodes the total time to backup and deduplicate data was under 14 hours, yielding an average of 2GB/s per second.

Physical tape production can be achieved directly through 4Gbps Fibre Channel links by exporting tapes from FalconStor VTL to the physical tape library without using a separate media server. All hardware components used for the performance test are commonly available standard parts, including standard Linux-based servers and low-cost SATA-based storage subsystems.

Editor's comments:- Record Breaking claims are often hostage to editor research. We've certainly run stories about faster backup and restores before (10TB/hour in 2003 for example) but that didn't include dedupe. Let's see if this one passes the test of reader scrutiny.


FCIA Reports on 2nd FCoE Plugfest

Editor:- May 20, 2009 - the Fibre Channel Industry Association today announced that it successfully completed its 2nd FCoE Plugfest the week of May 12th at the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Lab.

"This year's FCoE Plugfest was timed appropriately given tough economic times we are facing today – IT decision-makers are looking for savings in numerous areas such as power, space and cooling management while preserving their existing Fibre Channel investments" says Skip Jones, chairman FCIA and director Technology and Planning at QLogic. "Last week's FCoE Plugfest proved that this new technology is ready for prime time and ready to deliver the cost-savings that customers are looking for and underscores the arrival of a new efficient data center." Storage Events, Storage ORGs


New Book on Enterprise Storage

Editor:- May 7, 2009 - EMC has published a new book (480 pages $60) - "Information Storage and Management".

The book's 40 contributing writers cover the evolution of storage technology, including traditional deployment, consolidated storage networking and storage virtualization, while also addressing the most prevalent storage technologies, including direct attached storage (DAS), networked attached storage (NAS), storage area networks (SAN), content addressed storage (CAS), and IP SAN.

Here's a quote from the intro... "Not long ago, information storage was seen as only a bunch of disks or tapes attached to the back of the computer to store data..."

Yes - I remember those bad old days (pre 1998) before people thought of storage as a single market. It sounds like an interesting book.

You can never learn too much about storage. The 9 year old classic Storage Architecture Guide is still a popular article today. See also:- Storage Training
Storage History .................................................................
SAN OEMs and ISVs
InfiniBand / iSCSI / NAS / RAID
Aarohi Communications

Adaptec

ADIC

ADTX

ADVA Optical Networking

AMCC

ANACAPA

AnexTEK

Apple

Aprius

ASNP

ATTO Technology

Axxana

BakBone Software

BMC Software

BiTMICRO Networks

BlueArc

Bridge Technology

Bridgeworks

Brocade

Bus-Tech

Cepoint Networks

CipherMax

Ciprico

Cisco Systems

Cloverleaf Communications

Compellent

Computer Associates

CreekPath Systems

Crossroads Systems

Curtis

Cutting Edge

Datalink

DataCore Software

DataDirect Networks

DATAllegro

Dell Computer

Dot Hill

DTS

Elipsan

EMC

Emulex

Enhance Technology

EqualLogic

European Storage Concept

ExaGrid Systems

Exavio

Excel/Meridian Data

FalconStor Software

FCIA

Fibrenetix

Fujitsu

Gateway

Gresham Computing

Hitachi Data Systems

HP

IBM

Imperial Technology

Incipient

Infortrend

Inline

Intel

IntelliPath

InterSAN

Intransa

iQstor Networks

JMR Electronics

Kazeon Systems

LeftHand Networks

Legato Systems

LightSand Communications

LiveVault

LSI

Marner Storage Technologies

Medea

MicroNet Technology

MPC Computers

MTI Technology

Mountain View Data

NEC

Network Appliance

NetConvergence

Netreon

Nexsan Technologies

Nishan Systems

NSI Software

Nortel Networks

nStor

N-TEC

Okapi Software

Onaro

ONStor

Overland Storage

Pillar Data Systems

Plasmon

PMC-Sierra

PolyServe

Procom Technology

Proware Technology

QLogic

Qualstar

Quantum

Rave Computer

Rorke Data

iStor Networks

SANavigator

SANBlaze Technology

Sanbolic

SANcastle Technologies

Sanera Systems

SANgate Systems

SANRAD

Sans Digital

SAN Solutions

SAN Valley Systems

Seagate Technology

SENCOR

SGI

SkyStorage

SNIA

Solid Access Technologies

Solid Data Systems

Spectra Logic

STEC

Storage Engine

StorageQuest

StoreAge

Storewiz

Sun Microsystems

Superior Data Solutions

Systex

Taejin Infotech

TD Systems

TechnoMages

Texas Memory Systems

Third I/O

Thomson multimedia

Tiger Technology

Tivoli

Transtec

TrelliSoft

Ultera Systems

Unisys

User Groups

Vicom Systems

VMETRO

Volicon

Wasabi Systems

Western Scientific

Winchester Systems

Xiotech

Xyratex

Zetta Systems
still can't find it? check the acquired, dead & renamed list
fibre channel
Fibre-channel adapter cards
Universal Solid State Disk USSD 200 from Solid Access Technologies with SAS, FC, SCSI or custom interfaces
performance/price leading
SAS, FC & SCSI enterprise solid state disks
from Solid Access Technologies
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There are hundreds of articles about SSDs on StorageSearch.com
Here, below, are some examples.
  • RAM Cache Ratios in flash SSDs - it's important to know the underlying RAM cache architecture - even if you're happy with the R/W and IOPS performance.
  • 2010 - 1st Fizz in the SSD Bubble? - even the dogs in the street know this is going to be a multibillion dollar market. Greed will play as big a part as technology in shaping the SSD year ahead.
  • the pros and cons of using SSD ASAPs - auto tuning SSD appliances are a new category of SSD which entered the market in the 2nd half of 2009 to accelerate servers without needing human tune-ups. How can you tell if they are right for you? And how well do they work?
  • the Problem with Write IOPS - in flash SSDs - long established as a useful performance modeling metric - this article explains why some specs are exaggerated when applied to flash SSDs - or predict the wrong results for many common applications.
.
Teralyte removable disk to disk backup for SMBs
ejectable disk to disk backup for SMBs
Teralyte from Idealstor
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the Fastest Solid State Disks

Speed isn't everything, and it comes at a price.
But if you do need the6speediest SSD then wading through the web sites of over 90 current SSD oems to find a suitable candidate slows you down.

And the SSD search problem will get even worse.
the Fastest Solid State Disks
I've done the research for you to save you time. And this page is updated daily from storage news and direct inputs from oems. ...read the article,
.
click to read article by Xtore
NAS, DAS or SAN? - Choosing the Right Storage Technology for Your Organization - article by Xtore

It's 8 years since we published the Storage Architecture Guide a classic reference written by the world's first network storage company Auspex. The new overview article from Xtore places the main storage connection strategies in a current context. Here's an extract.

"Another important consideration for a medium sized business or large enterprise is heterogeneous data sharing. With DAS, each server is running its own operating platform, so there is no common storage in an environment that may include a mix of Windows, Mac and Linux workstations. NAS systems can integrate into any environment and serve files across all operating platforms. On the network, a NAS system appears like a native file server to each of its different clients. That means that files are saved on the NAS system, as well as retrieved from the NAS system, in their native file formats. NAS is also based on industry standard network protocols such as TCP/IP, FC and CIFS. " ... read the article, ...Xtore profile
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More articles about SANs

H
ere are some more articles we published on STORAGEsearch related to storage area networks.

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