FCoE, Security Loom Large at SNW

You’d never know from the broad range of products debuting at this week’s Storage Networking World show in Dallas that the global economy is teetering on the edge.

Fibre Channel over Ethernet product sightings and disk encryption top a long list of product news at this week’s Storage Networking World show.

But judging from all the products debuting at SNW, storage continues to benefit from its position as one of the hardest to delay IT expenses — and vendors are doing everything they can to tap that market (see Storage Vendors Brace for Economic Storm).

EMC, Cisco, Symantec, Hitachi Data Systems and HP are just some of the big names rolling out new or updated offerings this week.

EMC jumped on the Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) bandwagon with the Connectrix NEX-5020, its first FCoE switch, OEMed from Cisco. The solution uses Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) from Emulex and QLogic.

EMC also plans to offer an FCoE switch from Brocade when it becomes available.

EMC rival NetApp also announced FCoE support this week, with arrays planned for later this year.

Cisco, meanwhile, upgraded its wide area application acceleration (WAAS) offerings to ease bandwidth requirements and improve data replication times and time to recovery while minimizing data loss. The new version of Cisco WAAS software offers a Replication Accelerator mode that optimizes data center replication capabilities, with initial support for EMC SRDF and NetApp SnapMirror.

Thin Is In

Symantec refreshed its Veritas Storage Foundation management software to maximize thin-provisioned storage environments by optimizing migrations and storage reclamation. The company also announced Veritas Thin Reclamation API, a new API that automates space reclamation for thin provisioning storage arrays, with support from 3PAR, HP and HDS.

Veritas Storage Foundation is available now, with estimated pricing starting at $695 per server.

Disk Encryption

HP and HDS are changing the storage security debate with new disk encryption features.

HP said the new hardware encryption features for the StorageWorks XP24000 and XP20000 disk arrays protect the data stored on each disk drive in the array without degrading performance.

Encryption for the XP24000 and XP20000 will be available in December, with the option to add the encryption feature to existing disk arrays. U.S. list price will start at $23,000, depending on models and configuration.

HP also upgraded its key management for tape libraries while providing lower entry pricing. Secure Key Manager 1.1 will be available in December at a U.S. list price $28,500.

HDS refreshed its Universal Storage Platform, improving its storage services and management offering with features such as disk encryption and security, provisioning, business continuity and virtualized tiered storage.

HDS also unveiled its latest midrange storage systems, the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage (AMS) 2000 Series. The arrays offer four times greater performance and consolidation for iSCSI, NAS, and Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) environments.

The systems offer dynamic load balancing, SAS drives, MAID power savings technology, and future support for thin provisioning.

Dedupe Still Hot

Data de-duplication continues to be one of the storage industry’s hottest technologies, and SNW saw plenty of vendors promoting the technology.

Copan Systems unveiled its 100T Remote Office VTL, a new fast backup solution with de-duplication and MAID features.

Hifn introduced what it describes as a “hardware accelerated” data de-duplication platform aimed at OEMs, vendors, system builders and system integrators.

Axxana emerged from stealth mode with what it calls Enterprise Data Recording (EDR) technology, promising complete disaster recovery with no data loss over any geographical distance. Axxana says it combines the dependability of synchronous replication with the distance and cost advantages of asynchronous replication.

LSI also rolled out its latest modular storage system, the LSI Engenio 7900 Storage System, also offered by IBM (NYSE: IBM) as the DS5000. LSI also refreshed its StoreAge SVM (Storage Virtualization Manager) software and unveiled 6Gb/s SAS-to-SATA bridge cards and a 16-port SAS storage processor.

ONStor showed off its new NAS offering aimed at smaller enterprises, and BlueArc added software enhancements to its high-performance Titan unified storage solutions. Compellent Technologies added Live Volume, a remote continuity feature.

Tarmin Technologies unveiled GridBank, active archiving and intelligent storage software that runs on multiple platforms, and STORServer and Hitachi partnered with Mimosa on e-mail archiving solutions. Wasabi unveiled an OSD-compliant storage platform.

Virtualization remains a strong market for storage vendors, with FalconStor and Xiotech announcing support for Microsoft Hyper-V and other platforms.