WE'RE SICK OF IT, sick of it all. Sitting at the semiannual Storage Networking World conference last month in the hellhole
commonly known as Orlando, Fla., one of us (Mario was working in the lab) realized a few things -- we're sick and tired of
hearing about SRM (storage resource management) software, standards, and anything that reeks of interoperability.
Yes, we know standards such as CIM (Common Information Model) are important for advancement of the industry and are necessary
for better management of a harmonious, heterogeneous storage environment, but come on! Doesn't anyone have anything to talk
about besides applying standards? Doesn't anyone in the industry have an interest in innovation? (Before you rebut with policy-based
management and automation, think again -- everyone is talking about that, too.)
OK, we'll end this rant. Here are a few of the more interesting things we found at SNW.
Startup Bocada has a software product dubbed BackupReport that logs and produces reports on the success of an enterprise's
backups. Bocada estimates that roughly 60 percent of all backups fail; BackupReport will present this data so an administrator
can rectify the failures. A new version is due Nov. 11.
Arsenal Digital Solutions, a storage service provider (remember those?), is alive and well. It has outlasted has-been competitors
that have become independent software vendors hawking SRM software. Arsenal amassed a number of big, paying customers through
its resellers, such as AT&T and NTT Verio, attributing its success to storage solutions that have been proven to work time
and time again.
We also like what we saw and heard from Cisco Systems and Hitachi Data Systems. Next year Cisco will start integrating many
of its current and future storage functions into its family of Ethernet switches. Meanwhile, HDS will unveil a NAS blade that
will reside inside its Lightening box.
And speaking of innovation, isn't it time to find a way to prevent the perennial NAS manageability and scalability problems?
Z-Force solution says it's clear: Network them, stupid.
In a recent test, the company put together 100 NAS devices from various vendors and linked them to a cobweb of GbE switches
and Z-Force file switches, which makes it possible to see the whole set as a single 47TB filer.
More interesting yet, punch in a few rules on the Z-Force file switches, and you can automatically spread single files across
multiple NAS devices to improve performance or create mirror images to avoid disasters.
Z-Force claims a jaw-dropping 2GBps (yes, gigabytes) transfer rate, no changes to your software, and contained cost. We
can't wait until Q1 2003, when the Z-Force filer will begin shipping.
That's innovation -- count us in for a test drive.
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