Channel Strategies for the CIOStorage channel news roundup for Feb. 16 to Feb. 22, 2012
Symantec goes after Veeam, Acronis for patent infringement
Backup software giant
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Symantec said last week it’s suing Veeam Software and Acronis for patent
infringement, after the company accused its two smaller rivals of using Symantec technology in
their products.
Symantec’s products -- mainly NetBackup and Backup Exec -- cover the entire range of data protection. Veeam addresses virtual machine backup while Acronis specializes in image-based backup and restore. Symantec claims Veeam’s Backup & Replication and Acronis Backup & Recovery applications use technology based on Symantec patents without permission.
Symantec’s complaints claim its innovations are involved with functions necessary for “state of the art” backup and recovery. These innovations include backing up and imaging virtual machines, restoring imaged data on the same and different computer systems, and use of an effective user interface to manage backups.
Read the full story on Symantec’s claims of patent infringement by Veeam and Acronis.
GreenBytes joins all-flash storage parade with Solidarity
GreenBytes Inc., this week launched Solidarity, its first all-flash storage iSCSI array for SMBs that offers primary storage deduplication, compression, as well as a combination of single-level cell (SLC) and multi-level cell (MLC) flash drives.
Solidarity is a 3U dual-controller system that scales from 3.5 TB to 13.5 TB of MLC solid-state drives (SSDs) from STEC Inc. GreenBytes claims Solidarity’s effective capacity can run from 15 TB to 60 TB with deduplication and compression. The company also says its system can deliver 120,000 4K IOPS. The system is aimed at small enterprises that are heavily virtualized.
Check out this tip on implementing SSD in a cache appliance.
NetApp developing server-side flash software
NetApp CEO Tom Georgens says he expects server-side flash to become a key part of his vendor’s flash strategy. However, NetApp will take a different approach than its rival EMC.
Asked about EMC’s VFCache product during NetApp’s earnings call last week, Georgens said server-side flash is “a sure thing,” but NetApp will focus on data management software that works with PCIe cards instead of selling the cards. He doesn’t rule out selling cards either, though.
See the full story on NetApp’s plans to add server-side flash to its strategy.
Iomega upgrades SMB NAS with server-class drives, management features
Iomega Corp. last week shipped its StorCenter PX Server Class Series of SMB NAS devices that support 3 TB SATA drives, solid-state drives (SSDs), as well as software enhancements for management and data protection that the company says is better suited for business use than its SOHO and prosumer systems.
Iomega, which EMC Corp., purchased in 2008, first launched its PX NAS line last May. But the server class line includes a new version of EMC LifeLine software with power management and data protection features.
The new PX series will offer enterprise-class 1 TB, 2 TB, and 3 TB drives.
Get tips on implementing NAS systems in this tutorial.
HDS enhances non-disruptive data migration to VSP
Hitachi Data Systems Corp. has added a non-disruptive data migration capability to its flagship Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) that minimizes downtime for hosts and applications when moving data to the VSP from other storage arrays.
Hitachi Nondisruptive Migration moves data from HDS’ older Universal Storage Platform (USP) to the VSP. The target array spoofs the host operating system so it thinks it’s talking to the original system even as data is moved to the target. That allows applications to continue running during migration.
Check out the full story on HDS’ addition of non-disruptive data migration to VSP.
HP goes all-flash with new LeftHand iSCSI system
Hewlett-Packard last week quietly launched an all solid-state drive (SSD) version of its LeftHand iSCSI SAN array.
Unlike the server and services announcements HP made at its Global Partner Conference, HP made its storage news with little fanfare on a company blog.
The HP P4900 SSD Storage System has 16 400 GB multi-level cell (MLC) SAS SSDs – eight in each of the system’s two nodes. Each two-node system includes 6.4 TB, and customers can add 3.2 TB expansion nodes to scale to clusters of 102.4 TB. Expansion nodes increase the system’s IOPS as well as capacity.
See how SSD can address performance problems in this tip.
Actifio banks on IBM giving it a PAS with service providers
IBM and Actifio struck up a partnership last week that startup Actifio hopes will bring its Protection and Availability (PAS) platform to the cloud and IBM sees as a way to fill data protection needs for service providers.
IBM and Actifio said they will offer bundles to cloud service providers and VARs. The packages include Actifio’s PAS data protection with IBM DS3500 Express, IBM Storwize V7000, XIV Gen3 and SAN Storage Volume Controller (SVC) systems.
Check out the full story on IBM and Actifio’s partnership.
Virtual Sharp releases ReliableDR 3.0 for VMs
Virtual Sharp makes software that orchestrates the disaster recovery process. The software runs from the DR site and tracks the configuration of virtual machines, vMotions that have taken place, and middleware, application and service dependencies, all via a system of snapshot copies of the components of the primary environment.
Using these snapshots in its “DR sandbox” it can test recovery processes as often as desired, will effect recovery in the correct virtual machine boot order, test processes at the heart of application services and can report on the whole process in metrics understandable by the business.
The reason for speaking to Virtual Sharp was its release this week of ReliableDR 3.0, which introduces features that allow the service to be used by a service provider, including multi-tenancy and Web-based architecture.
See how disaster recovery and server virtualization can go hand-in-hand in this tip.
Additional storage news
Check out last week’s storage channel news roundup.
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