As demand for faster and less expensive IP storage in the enterprise increases, the need to ensure that customers get the best performance out of their applications also increases, Intransa of San Jose, California said. With Intransa providing its customers with a scalable IP network storage solution with 10GbE support, it was natural that its customers and StorAlliance partners would also want a certification program from Intransa, the company said.
The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor expects software and hardware vendors, and the operating system to take some time to catch up and take full advantage of the 10GbE speed. The university has tested an Intransa StorStac system 10GbE PCU100 configuration during the beta trials. A number of initial test scenarios carried out by the university revealed that factors other than the Intransa system were rate-limiting in the tests, The University of Michigan said. Applications and even the Windows 2003 OS required tweaking in order to handle 10 GbE capabilities, it added.
Vendors entering the Intransa StorAlliance10GbE certified IP storage program will be able to use Intransa's experience with IP networked storage, and do the testing in the company's StorAlliance Certification Lab in San Jose, California, Intransa said. The testing includes network, storage and application tuning modules that allow participants to collect and analyze I/O (input-output) traces, identify performance bottlenecks for elimination, code enhancement suggestions and assistance with any needed retesting, the company said. The StorAlliance participants can display the “Intransa 10GbE Certified for IP Storage” logo on their website and related marketing materials upon successful completion of the certification program, Intransa added.
Research firm, Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) of Milford, Massachusetts sees a rising interest in 10GbE and iSCSI (Internet SCSI). Intransa is focusing on bandwidth intensive applications and 10GbE will raise the level of performance and scalability for the markets they are going after, ESG said. The certification program is an example of Intransa’s commitment to 10GbE, and the realization that in order for solutions to run seamlessly and optimally, you need to address 10GbE environments holistically, ESG added.
Abrevity Inc., a provider of data classification and management software and member of the Intransa StorAlliance Technology Partner program, has seen the value of the Intransa's 10 GbE PCU100 system in terms of increased performance, according to the Cupertino, California company. The Intransa systems are the fastest tested by Abrevity for file system scanning, metadata extraction, report generation and tiered data migration, Abrevity said. Customers with more than 25 TB (terabytes) of data will see performance gains with 10GbE for tiered storage, legal discovery, security and compliance initiatives, Abrevity added.
Another StorAlliance program member is Double-Take Software Inc., a provider that enables customers to protect and recover business-critical data and applications to support disaster recovery, high-availability and centralized backup. The need for enterprise-level 10GbE IP storage is clear, Double-Take of Southborough, Massachusetts said. With the increased number of remote offices and fan-in requirements, having a storage system that can scale with data from many remote offices at one time is an asset, said Double-Take Software, a Microsoft Gold Partner.
Sanbolic Inc., another StorAlliance partner, is also participating in the program. Sanbolic is a privately held company, and a developer of SAN (storage area network) software. In the video surveillance market, speed of data capture is a critical element, and Intransa's StorStac 10GbE system brings a significant solution to the problem, said Sanbolic, also a Microsoft Partner. The company is delighted to be part of this certification program endorsing integration of its file system, Sanbolic of Watertown, Massachusetts added.
As enterprises address the need to consolidate and better manage data protection in their remote offices, having the highest possible performance in the central repository system is a critical component in providing timely backup and recovery services for their business-critical remote applications, according to FilesX Inc., a provider of CDP (Continuous Data Protection) solutions for remote offices. Intransa delivers this performance with its 10GbE IP storage solution, FilesX of Newton, Massachusetts added.
The 10GbE IP Storage Certification program is for hardware vendors, as well as the ISVs, Intransa said.
Neterion Inc., for example, is a member of Intransa's StorAlliance 10GbE IP Storage Certification Program, according to the Cupertino, California said-based company. This announcement improves Neterion’s position in the IP SAN market with a solution that can support up to 1 PB (petabyte) of storage, Neterion said. The StorAlliance program ensures that Neterion Xframe iSCSI “initiator” HBAs (host bus adapters) are compatible with Intransa's Performance Controller Units (PCU), Neterion added. The company’s participation in StorAlliance is the logical next step as Intransa includes Neterion's Xframe V-NIC adapters as iSCSI “target” HBAs in the StorStac System PCU100, Neterion added.
Fujitsu is also a member of the 10GbE IP Storage Certification Program. The Fujitsu XG2000 was tested and certified by Intransa, besides being an integral part of all customer beta systems that tried out 10GbE in their own environments, Fujitsu Computer Products of America Inc. of Sunnyvale, California said. Fujitsu Computer Products of America is a subsidiary of Fujitsu Limited of Tokyo, Japan.
With the scalable performance and capacity of the Intransa IP storage StorStac System, Fujitsu expects customers in markets such as digital entertainment, post production and video editing, to benefit from this program, as they will know their suppliers can get optimum performance out of their 10GbE environments, Fujitsu Computer Products of America said.
Intransa StorStac Systems support 1, 2 and 10GbE interfaces that allow customers to select the best mix of performance and cost for their own specific needs, Intransa said. Since 2003, more than one hundred customers have implemented Intransa solutions for their ability to independently scale performance and availability by adding storage controllers and capacity by simply increasing the number of storage enclosures, the company said. Intransa's StorStac systems are architected to scale from a few TB up to a PB of RAID (redundant array of independent disks) protected IP storage in a single system, Intransa added.
With the 10GbE for enterprise storage in the market, only a 10GbE certified for IP Storage environment will ensure that customers get the best out of their entire storage solution, Intransa said.
