This post was written by Kim Windmiller
Using iSCSI arrays is already a “green” approach to a data center. By giving each server as much storage as it needs, considerable efficiencies can be achieved in numbers of hard drives, RAID controllers and power utilization. The green aspect of storage arrays can be improved further, if their operators pay little more attention on the way hard drives are used. Among a range of vendors, only Nexsan Technologies has actually done anything to adhere to the Massive Arrays of Idle Disks (MAID) initiatives. Nexsan’s SATAbeast has settings for three levels of power saving, the highest level actually spinning disks down.
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With small-to-medium sized businesses expanding their needs to store and backup critical data, D- Link’s Canadian division has launched a new 8-terabyte Storage Area Network (SAN) array that it says will fit the bill at the right price. D-Link Canada says its newly released SAN array will bring major storage capabilities to the SMB market. According to D-Link Canada, the new DSN-2100-10 SAN array is based on D-Link’s integrated iSCSI System-on-a-CHIP design found in the company’s DSN-3000 series of products. Jean-Paul McFarlane, product manager at D-Link Canada said that with its new SAN array, the device can be easily implemented for supplementary, near-line or disaster recovery storage needs and help consolidate these capabilities across all users.
Thecus has once again rocked the storage world with the launch of the powerful iSCSI storage series, the i4500R and i5500. The i4500R and i5500 series delivers unbeatable value proposition for enterprises looking to store and secure valuable data. The i4500R and i5500 come with 4 and 5 hot-swappable SATA drive bays, respectively, that accommodate up to 4TB and 5TB of storage.
NetXen popped up out of nowhere as it was from a storage point of view and forced itself onto the storage FCoE radar screen. The radar screen was pretty simple concerning FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) with HBA suppliers Emulex and QLogic adding FCoE functionality to Ethernet Network Interface (NIC) cards making them Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) and talking to standard Ethernet Switches (Cisco, Blade Network Technologies, etc.) or data center switches (Cisco and Brocade) and through them to storage arrays. Eventually the storage arrays will get native FCoE interfaces (e.g. EMC CLARiiON CX4). Meanwhile, in a parallel iSCSI universe, Ethernet NICS with TCP/IP Offload Engines (TOEs) link servers and iSCSI storage over Ethernet. Now except the above mentioned NetXen has appeared and offered a CNA single chip NX3031 10GbE product with FCoE capability and iSCI TCP/IP offload engine (TCP/IP) functionality.
iStor Networks Inc., a leading iSCSI (Internet SCSI) network storage solutions company based in Irvine California has announced the launch of its new management interface, integraSuite/MC Management Center. The innovative virtualization solution developed by iStor simplifies the management and also possesses integraStor’s virtualized storage features. Moreover, integraSuite provides additional features like setup, storage provisioning and allocation. Its intuitive interface doesn’t require any storage expertise. So, the network administrator is free and can focus on other vital and critical functions. It incorporates the iStor’s storage virtualization technology which eliminates the need of managing each and every RAID (redundant array of independent disks) groups as well as their LUN (logical unit number) configurations.