Pillar Data, Overland and LeftHand Networks also air new storage network wares.
IBM and Microsoft this week unveiled an e-mail archiving partnership, one of a slew of network storage announcements made by vendors this week:
IBM and Microsoft this week unveiled an e-mail archiving partnership, one of a slew of network-storage announcements made by vendors this week:
* IBM and Microsoft said they will co-market products based on Windows Server and IBM hardware, software and services. Microsoft will recommend IBM storage and software to its customers; IBM will install storage and e-mail archiving software in Windows environments. The co-marketed products will be available from IBM business partners and include a bundled package of Windows Server, IBM software, servers, storage hardware and services for small and midsized businesses. One bundle will enable customers to retain and archive their e-mail for compliance or legal-discovery purposes. The bundle includes IBM’s CommonStore eMail Archiving Preload with e-mail search functionality preloaded on an IBM System x BladeCenter Server and using IBM’s System Storage Archive Manager software and the IBM System Storage DS4200 Express disk storage system. The package is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2007 starting at $53,000.
* Pillar Data Systems rolled out two storage arrays – one entry- level and one higher-end configuration of its Axiom Storage system. In the low-end configuration, is enabled. Users of the array can use it either as a network-attached or storage-area network device. It includes drives and starts at $35,000 for 5TB of capacity. The array scales from 1.6TB to as much as 24 TB.
The high-end Axiom includes 4Gbps Fibre Channel drives and is compliant with the Storage Management Interface Specification (SMI-S). It has twice the capacity and performance of previous versions. The array can scale to 380TB.
* Overland Storage unveiled its Ultamus RAID appliances for small and mid-sized businesses and departments within enterprise-size businesses.
The Ultamus RAID 5200 is a rack-mounted appliance that supports as many as 52 Serial ATA drives and as much as 26TB of storage in a 4U (7-inch) high chassis. The Ultamus RAID 1200 houses as many as 12 Serial ATA drives and 6TB of storage capacity in a 2U rack-mountable enclosure. Each appliance supports 4Gbps Fibre Channel connections and the Serial Attached SCSI interface.
The 5200 starts at $36,000; the 1200 is expected to be available at a later date.
* IP SANs are again hot as LeftHand Networks integrated its SAN/iQ iSCSI SAN software with HP’s ProLiant DL380 servers to create scalable SAN nodes that can attach to a Gigabit Ethernet network. This integration lets customers with existing ProLiant servers easily implement an iSCSI storage cluster. The price of SAN/iQ integration starts at $12,000.
* Xiotech also added an entry-level iSCSI storage system – the Magnitude 750 – to its portfolio of SAN arrays. The Magnitude 750 is user-installable and has a capacity of 12TB. It can be configured with either a single or dual controller and has integrated management software. The ICON Manager eases the configuration of the box and allows IT admins to manage it and add storage to it.
* EVault announced that its InfoStage and Reports software are now available. InfoStage is disk-to-disk backup and recovery software; Reports is Web-based software that reports storage-related information on the backup and recovery process. EVault’s software is available either as a purchased license or as a service.
* In the network-attached storage clustering realm, ONStor announced software for its arrays that lets customers set up and configure asynchronous replication between clusters of ONStor Bobcat Gateways or Pantera Clustered NAS systems. The Data Mirror software works over either IP or Fibre Channel links and among ONStor systems of different configurations and capacities. It is available for $10,000 per ONStor node.
