Plus: Microsoft says iSCSI driver available; Veritas wraps up Precise acquisition.
SMC Networks this month is expected to release new five- and eight-port TigerStack Gigabit Ethernet switches and Gigabit network interface cards aimed at small “power user” workgroups. The unmanaged boxes will support basic Layer 2 switching and triple speed – 10/100/1000M bit/sec – links over Category 5, 5e and 6 wiring.
SMC says these switches and NIC products will be priced at about $25 per port.
Microsoft announced last week that its software driver for the iSCSI protocol is available. The iSCSI initiator service works with Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003 servers. The iSCSI protocol transports block-level storage data over IP networks. Gartner says that by 2006, more than 1.5 million servers will use iSCSI to connect to storage-area networks. Microsoft’s iSCSI initiator supports IP Security, the Internet Storage Name Service and the Windows Management Instrumentation.
It is available for free download here.
Veritas Software said last week it has closed its $609 million acquisition of Precise Software Solutions. Veritas intends to use Precise’s application performance-management software to expand its storage-focused software portfolio. Precise’s i3 application performance management product and StorageCentral resource-management software have been renamed Veritas i3 and Veritas StorageCentral. Pricing for the software will remain essentially unchanged for now, Veritas executives says. Throughout the next year, Veritas will work to integrate its products with Precise’s; further details about that integration will be available later this year.
Veritas also recently acquired server provisioning technology developer Jareva Technologies. One integration priority will be automating the connections between software from Precise and Jareva with Veritas’ Cluster Server software.
