Storage UPDATE, April 29, 2002

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(below COMMENTARY)

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April 29, 2002—In this issue:

1. COMMENTARY

2. NEWS AND VIEWS

3. ANNOUNCEMENTS

4. RESOURCES

5. NEW AND IMPROVED

6. CONTACT US

1. COMMENTARY
(contributed by Sheila Childs, [email protected])

Storage networks promise great value. Using high-speed storage networks separated by great distances gives you sophisticated and virtually foolproof disaster-recovery capabilities. Managing storage independently from your high-availability server configurations gives you increased application uptime. In addition to these benefits, well-managed storage networks can potentially lower the total cost of your computing and storage resources.

Over time, storage networks have begun to deliver on these promises. However, adoption has been relatively slow. Today, almost 80 percent of the storage capacity sold is still Direct Attached Storage (DAS), in part because of both the perceived and the real problems with storage-networking component interoperability.

Interoperability problems scare users. After purchasing costly storage systems to solve numerous problems and lower storage total cost of ownership (TCO), many companies are unpleasantly surprised when the implementation process encounters interoperability problems. In vendors' haste to bring solutions to market, they often perform limited interoperability testing.

Fear about interoperability problems, however, doesn't discourage companies that want to move away from monolithic, homogeneous storage solutions. Despite the fact that storage-network standards are still evolving, users want to deploy solutions composed of hardware and software from multiple vendors to keep costs low and to gain configuration options. Storage users insist on interoperability, and vendors must deliver.

Fortunately, storage-networking vendors now have several venues in which they can test product interoperability as part of a functional solution. One such venue is the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Interoperability Demonstration held twice annually at Storage Networking World. Since 1999, the Storage Networking World conference has given vendors a chance to bring their software and hardware to a central location for 3 to 4 days of concentrated interoperability testing. Over the past 2 years, conference organizers have encouraged end users to attend these interoperability demonstrations. Vendor participation has grown to a point at which more than 60 storage-networking vendors work together on location.

Four months before each Storage Networking World, SNIA's Interoperability Committee meets to discuss themes and logistics for the upcoming conference demonstrations. The planning begins in earnest after members select theme leaders, and vendors sign up to participate in thematic areas. During the planning period, vendors determine which of their products to bring to the lab. SNIA prohibits product promotion.

At first glance, the SNIA Storage Networking World Interoperability Demonstration might seem to be an opportunity for companies to market their products and attract end users by discussing the business benefits of their solutions. However, demonstrations also benefit end users because vendors must work together on interoperable solutions that can address a business problem. In general, individual vendors test their products' interoperability in their own labs (i.e., in a controlled environment) with selected vendors as partners. The SNIA interoperability lab invites interoperability testing chaos in the service of better solutions. Vendors plug things together, sometimes for the first time, and often must work with other vendors whom they haven't chosen as partners. Examples that come to mind include demonstrations of switch interoperability and demonstrations of multiple backups and other data-management applications that must share tape libraries.

Cooperation in a "vendor-neutral" environment staged as a demonstration

open to end users provides tremendous incentive to interoperability initiatives. To provide useful solutions, products that vendors demonstrate must perform well in this environment. In addition, end users note which vendors are absent. Demonstration participants get a chance to roll up their sleeves to work out problems and assess where products require further interoperability. The result is an increased focus on interoperable solutions, tested under watchful eyes.

Lastly, interoperability demonstrations let companies that are incorporating emerging standards perform incremental testing of standards-based products. For example, at a recent Storage Networking World in Palm Desert, California, several vendors came together to find multiple solutions that met the emerging Common Information Modeling (CIM) standard. Such events drive the technology forward and help vendors bring better products to market more quickly. End users who are interested in multivendor, interoperable solutions would do well to attend such events and encourage their vendors to participate.
http://www.snia.org
http://www.storagenetworkingworld.com
http://www.snwonline.com

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2. NEWS AND VIEWS
(contributed by Keith Furman, [email protected])

Next-generation storage technology that IBM announced in late 2000 will finally see the light of day next year. IBM will make its data-storage system code-named Storage Tank available to customers in 2003. IBM hopes the new system will help the company continue to take market share from storage leader EMC.

According to IBM, Storage Tank will be the industry's first file system optimized for accessing, saving, sharing, and managing files on storage networks. "[IBM is] working to remove barriers to data access with an evolutionary software technology roadmap that will help customers plan and transition to highly intelligent and cost-effective storage networks," said Linda Sanford, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Storage Systems Group.

Along with Storage Tank development, IBM is also developing a Linux-based virtualization engine and standards-based management interfaces. The virtualization engine will provide virtualization software designed to reduce storage cost of ownership by helping systems administrators take better advantage of existing storage resources. The management interfaces will be based on the Storage Networking Industry Association's (SNIA's) software model.
http://www.storage.ibm.com/press/announce/20020423.html

Emulex, a storage-networking host bus adapter (HBA) supplier, debuted a new series of PCI Extended (PCI-X) Fibre Channel HBAs. PCI-X is a new system-bus architecture that increases I/O bandwidth in high-end, multiprocessor servers. Emulex's new series includes the Emulex LightPulse LP9802 and LightPulse LP982, which are both 2Gbps native 133MHz PCI-X Fibre Channel HBAs.

The LP9802 is designed for high-end and the LP982 for midrange Storage Area Networks (SANs). Both adapters are capable of sustaining more than 390MBps on one 2Gbps link. The adapters are backward-compatible with existing 1Gbps and 2Gbps Fibre Channel PCI installations. The new series also offers an open standards-based management API.
http://www.emulex.com

3. ANNOUNCEMENTS

Our mobile and wireless computing site has it all—articles, product reviews, and other resources to help you support a wireless network and mobile users. Check it out today!
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4. RESOURCES

(Three messages in this thread)

Zaheer has a crucial 5GB database on a remote server that runs Microsoft SQL Server 7.0. He needs to move the data to a local server. How can he accomplish this transfer? To read more about the problem or offer your expertise, use the following link:
http://www.winnetmag.com/forums/rd.cfm?app=78&id=102354

( contributed by John Savill, http://www.windows2000faq.com )

Q. How can I get NT Backup for Windows XP Home Edition?

A. Although XP Professional Edition and XP Home both ship with NT Backup, only XP Pro installs NT Backup by default. You can install NT Backup for XP Home by performing the following steps:

5. NEW AND IMPROVED
(contributed by Carolyn Mascarenas, [email protected])

Advanced Digital Information Corporation (ADIC) announced the upgrading of its Scalar storage-networking libraries, including the Scalar 10K, the Scalar 1000, and the Scalar 100, to a 2GBps Fibre Channel interface. The Scalar family provides data protection, high-capacity storage, built-in Storage Area Network (SAN) security, integrated data path verification, redundant path support, error recovery, and performance-optimization features. Contact ADIC at 425-881-8004 or 800-336-1233 for pricing information.
http://www.adic.com

Maxtor released the MaxAttach 4300, a 640GB- or 480GB-configured Network Attached Storage (NAS) server that's designed for small to midsized businesses. The rack-mountable system lets you store heterogeneous file-sharing data, perform high-speed data backup, and perform restoration when needed. The MaxAttach 4300 with 640GB storage capacity costs $5499; the MaxAttach 4300 with 480GB storage capacity costs $4499. Contact Maxtor at 408-894-5000.
http://www.maxtor.com

6. CONTACT US
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