Storage channel news roundup for Jan. 6 to Jan. 12, 2011
Storage execs see more cloud storage, data reduction, SSDs in 2011
If you were tired of hearing about cloud storage in 2010, you'd
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better buy ear plugs. Storage
executives agree that cloud hype and adoption will increase significantly this year, and insist
more people are using the cloud than we think.
Storage execs also see technologies that scratched the surface in 2010 such as primary data reduction, solid-state storage and 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) SANs playing more prominent roles this year.
"We'll see the same economic conditions and the same major IT themes this year as we saw in 2010," said Val Bercovici, NetApp's cloud czar who leads the strategic planning team in the company's CTO office. "2011 will be a year of solidification and increased adoption of some key trends that began in 2009 and 2010."
Read more about cloud storage and cloud gateways in this article.
Alacritech packages SSD, offload into NAS acceleration device
Alacritech Inc. has expanded its TCP/IP offload engine (TOE) technology to increase NFS throughput and rolled out the solid-state drive (SSD)-based ANX 1500 NAS acceleration appliance.
The ANX 1500 is based on Alacritech's NFS Bridge caching technology that includes an acceleration chip, data optimization software, NFS processing offload, data caching and a management GUI for the appliance. The appliances include 2 TB or 4 TB of multi-level cell SSD (MLC SSD) from Unigen Corp.
Alacritech claims a 4 TB ANX 1500 can deliver 120,000 NFS operations per second -- a figure that one of its test customers found conservative. The 2 TB version costs $60,000, while the 4 TB model is $100,000.
Learn about SSD advantages and disadvantages in this video.
Mainframe backup brings different challenges to backup administrators
Ask Paul Strassmann, a long-time mainframe maven and now a committed cloud commentator, about mainframe backup, and you'll get an earful that boils down to fuggedaboutit.
But despite his and others' view that mainframe backup is a dinosaur, mainframe backup issues persist. According to Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Lauren Whitehouse, "It's a very different space than open-system backup. The technologies for mainframe backup haven't kept pace with those for open systems. For example, the concept of filling a tape cartridge doesn't exist, which is why 'stacking' on VTL [virtual tape library] virtual media creates big value benefits," she said.
Read the full story on mainframe backup challenges.
Only half of SMBs have disaster recovery plans, according to survey
Half of all small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have no disaster recovery plans in place, according to results of Symantec's 2011 SMB Disaster Preparedness survey. The percentage of SMBs surveyed without DR plans was higher than last year, when 47% said they had no plans.
Symantec surveyed 1,288 SMBs (organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees) and 522 of those SMBs' customers in 23 countries for the report.
"There's not that big of a change since last year," said Bernard Laroche, Symantec's senior director of SMB product marketing. "The number of SMBs with a disaster recovery plan is going down instead of up. SMBs still haven't recognized the tremendous impact a disaster can have on their businesses."
Read the full story on SMB disaster recovery plans today.
CompTIA and SNIA team up to develop professional certification for IT workers
CompTIA and the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) have teamed up to develop a new professional certification for IT workers that work on storage networking and information management.
The new certification, "CompTIA Storage+ Powered by SNIA", validates that the worker has the necessary knowledge and skills to support technologies in data storage, including storage networking, data protection and underlying interconnect technologies. The certification may help organizations better manage expanding data storage.
The beta release of this certification is scheduled for Q2 in 2011 and a global rollout in the second half of 2011.
Bocada extends distribution agreement with Promark Technology
Bocada Inc. announced that it has extended its distribution agreement with Promark Technology Inc., a value-added distributor in the United States. Bocada extended its agreement for the sales in government markets through Promark's General Services Adminstration (GSA) schedule.
This partnership allows for Bocada Prism to be available in the public sector through the GSA schedule. Also, Promark channel partners will be able to sell products to government customers even if those customers don't have a GSA contract, and Bocada can fill government orders that they otherwise were not qualified to provide.
Additional storage news
Check out last week's storage channel news roundup.
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