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Storage UPDATE, December 1, 2003

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1. Commentary
- Attending to Trends

2. News and Views
- HP Fights Competitors with New Small and Midsized Business Storage Line
- Cisco and VERITAS Ship Storage Switch Management Software

3. Announcements
- Order Windows & .NET Magazine and the Article Archive CD at One Low Rate!
- New--Microsoft Security Road Show!

4. Resource
- Computer Runs Out of Virtual Address Storage Space When Many Structured Storage Files are Open

5. Event
- Receive a Free Identity Management White Paper!

6. New and Improved
- SAN Connectivity for Blade Servers
- Tell Us About a Hot Product and Get a T-Shirt!

7. Contact Us
- See this section for a list of ways to contact us.

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==== 1. Commentary: Attending to Trends ====
by Elliot King, [email protected]

A lot of the buzz that October's Storage Networking World (SNW) Orlando 2003 conference in Orlando, Florida, generated was due to Mark Lewis's remarks about the growing importance of Information Lifecycle Management (ILM). Lewis, EMC's executive vice president of Open Software Operations and chief technology officer (CTO), reiterated his company's commitment to ILM and underscored that EMC's acquisition of Documentum and Legato Systems this year was geared toward creating ILM products.
If nothing else, EMC's trumpeting of the ILM horn has forced its competitors to respond. At SNW, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) announced that it will resell IXOS Software's content-management software, a key ILM component. The following week, VERITAS Software unveiled enterprise data-protection software and solutions aimed at meeting regulatory-compliance needs. Both are features of ILM.
In many ways, the concept of ILM reflects the next level of Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM). In its simplest formulation, HSM lets administrators store less valuable and less frequently accessed data on less expensive, less interactive storage technology. In short, HSM established policies to move data from primary storage systems to secondary storage systems, then to archives.
ILM reflects the storage infrastructure's increased complexity after the emergence of disk-to-disk backup and other alternatives. ILM also addresses the need to ensure that certain data can't be changed after it's stored, the need for companies to be able to promptly restore archived data, and the growing number of data types that enterprises must preserve.
Without doubt, ILM is an important concept. But it's primarily just a concept--a way of thinking and the acknowledgment that organizations need to develop and execute sophisticated storage policies. Even EMC concedes that few products have been developed expressly for ILM.
Although ILM might be the newest idea to gain traction in the storage arena, it isn't the only new trend, and it might not even be the most important. A lot of the chatter at SNW Fall 2002 was about the Storage Networking Industry Association's (SNIA's) Storage Management Initiative Specification. SMI-S is the storage subset of the Common Information Model (CIM), which defines the physical and logical structure and behavior of any object to be managed.
After the SMI-S is finished and integrated into products, developing management tools for storage infrastructures built upon heterogeneous technology will be much easier. Interestingly, the ability to eliminate multivendor toolsets is a higher priority for many storage administrators than is developing ILM procedures. At the most recent SNW, 20 vendors demonstrated their SMI-S implementations and many indicated that they would ship SMI-S-compliant technology by the end of this year.
Moreover, in mid-November, SNIA announced that the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) agreed to place SMI-S on its fast-track review process. As a result, SNIA officials anticipate that the SMI-S will become an official ANSI standard by second quarter 2004. Although SMI-S doesn't address interoperability concerns, it's an important step toward developing a unified storage-management layer.
But the major development that promises to shake up the storage sector over the next year is Microsoft's aggressive move into the arena. In September, Microsoft unveiled Windows Storage Server 2003. An upgrade to Windows Powered Network Attached Storage (WPNAS), the new OS incorporates certain crucial performance improvements--such as failover clustering, replication, and snapshot technology--that make it a formidable player in the enterprise. Furthermore, in mid-November, Microsoft announced the 14 storage hardware vendors whose Internet SCSI (iSCSI) technology had been certified as interoperating with Windows and Microsoft's iSCSI software initiator. (For more details about that announcement, see the November 24 issue of Storage UPDATE at http://www.winnetmag.com/windows/article/articleid/40943/40943.html.)
Microsoft's moves should have several results. First, Windows Storage Server 2003 will continue Microsoft's drive into the Network Attached Storage (NAS) marketplace; several OEMs have announced products based on the OS. As a result, storage infrastructures will become more complex rather than simpler. Second, the price of an IP Storage Area Network (SAN) will drop, putting SAN technology within reach of more companies. In fact, according to a Cisco Systems survey, cost has been the greatest deterrent to wider proliferation of SANs.
So, even if ILM was just the hype of the day at SNW, it's only one of many developments that bear watching by storage administrators. The industry doesn't lack important new trends.

==== 2. News and Views ====
by Keith Furman, [email protected]

HP Fights Competitors with New Small and Midsized Business Storage Line
Two years after Dell and EMC announced their storage-system partnership, HP is rolling out a new line of storage solutions. Dell/EMC solutions target small and midsized businesses; the companies say they have installed more than 7000 systems. HP's new storage-product family and packaged server-storage offerings also target small and midsized business, and the company claims that its pricing is as much as 50 percent less than solutions from Dell/EMC and IBM.
The new HP products include a combination of new HP StorageWorks Modular Smart Array (MSA) family and HP's ProLiant servers. "By combining HP storage and server offerings, we have simplified the purchase, use, management, and maintenance for small and medium businesses," Nigel Ball, vice president of HP's Small Medium Business organization, said.
The MSA family includes the MSA30, an external Direct Attached Storage (DAS) enclosure; the MSA500, a DAS system designed for storage consolidation; and the MSA1000, an entry-level Storage Area Network (SAN) storage array for the transition of DAS to SAN. The family starts at less than $10,000.
HP's new server-storage packages include the HP ProLiant DL380 Packaged Cluster with MSA500, which features two HP ProLiant DL380 servers, an MSA500 enclosure, and two host bus adapters (HBAs) and costs $9999; the HP ProLiant DL380 Packaged Cluster with MSA1000, which features two HP ProLiant DL380 servers, an MSA1000 enclosure, two HBAs, and one eight-port Fibre Channel switch and costs $19,999; the MSA500 Starter Kit, which offers direct attached SCSI for $5499; and the HP StorageWorks MSA1000 SAN Starter Kit, which offers an entry-level SAN environment and costs $14,900; and add-on kits for the MSA500 and MSA1000, which add high availability for $3999 and $14,500, respectively.
http://www.hp.com/go/smbgetmore

Cisco and VERITAS Ship Storage Switch Management Software
Cisco and VERITAS Software have announced the release of new network-based volume-management software. VERITAS Storage Foundation for Networks on the Cisco's MDS 9000 Series of Multilayer Directors and Fabric Switches provides storage-volume management and virtualization using Cisco's storage-networking hardware. The software runs on Cisco's Advanced Services Module (ASM) and uses Fibre Channel ports.
The companies say their solution offers better integration for Storage Area Network (SAN) services than host-based or appliance-based virtualization solutions and is manageable with VERITAS's SANPoint Control 3.6 software, which is part of VERITAS Storage Resource Management (SRM) solution. "Through the VERITAS Storage Foundation for Networks on the Cisco MDS 9000, the two companies have delivered a solution that simplifies the complex IT storage environment and allows customers to gain control of capital and operating costs through consistent and automated management of storage," Soni Jiandani, vice president of Cisco's Marketing for the Storage Technology Group, said. The solution is available now; pricing starts at $12,000. http://www.cisco.com
http://www.veritas.com

==== 3. Announcements ====
(from Windows & .NET Magazine and its partners)

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==== 4. Resource ====

Computer Runs Out of Virtual Address Storage Space When Many Structured Storage Files are Open
When you open structured storage files by using a third-party program, the computer eventually runs out of virtual address storage space. Microsoft has fixed this problem in the most recent Windows 2000 service pack. To find obtain the service pack, go to the following URL:
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==== 6. New and Improved ====
by Renee Munshi, [email protected]

SAN Connectivity for Blade Servers
QLogic announced that its Fibre Down technology is now shipping as an option for RLX Technologies' ServerBlade 3000i and ServerBlade 2800i. RLX ServerBlades are complete modular computing platforms that include a processor, memory, storage, network functionality, an OS, and management features. RLX's high-performance ServerBlades will offer QLogic Fibre Down--which integrates single-chip Fibre Channel host adapters and management controllers--as an option. Designed for ultradense data center environments, Fibre Down technology increases the storage expansion capabilities of ServerBlades by providing reliable, high-bandwidth, long-distance connectivity to Fibre Channel SANs. For more information, visit the Qlogic Web site.
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==== 7. Contact Us ====

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