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3/18/2010 5:00 PM - 3/18/2010 7:00 PM

Where:

Cheney Hall
177 Hartford Rd.
Manchester, CT 06040

Come stop by if you are in the area!]]> Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:42:40 -0500 http://www.triaxisinc.com/content/careers.php?itemid=20 If you are...

* great at technology sales (or plan to be),
* have inside sales experience (from prospecting to closing) with a business/technical aptitude, and
* are excited about working with new IT technologies (in our case, data storage),

... then you may be right for one of two positions we are trying to fill with the right talent!Highlights:

* relaxed, goal-oriented work environment
* competitive salary with uncapped commission plan
* ongoing skills and product training

Requirements:

* excellent communicator over the telephone to IT professionals
* able to work diligently to reach goals with minimal supervisory oversight
* ability to grasp IT business challenges and match to appropriate solutions
* outstanding work-ethic and morals
* a clean and steady work record
* a driving interest in working with technology
* demonstrated success in tele-sales, from prospecting to closing
* excellent skills with Microsoft-based tools and applications
* be able to pass a drug and alcohol screening
* looking for a long-term, financially and personally fulfilling career

Compensation:

The position is structured with an uncapped sales commission plan that is truly worth considering. This includes a selected product line that is taking the market by storm that can get you started fast earning serious money. You will earn $56,000 at goal, but with a 40% of GM$ commission rate, with the right contacts and a willingness to work hard and smart, $100K is doable and the sky is the limit!

A base salary is provided as well as a draw against commissions that is commensurate with the level of executive talent you bring to the table. This is to provide you with the security and protection you need so you can stay focused on reaching your goals.

We offer co-paid Oxford health insurance, a host of co-paid Aflac benefits, ten paid holidays and 15 personal days for vacation, sick time, or simply personal time off, as well as a 401K plan, and profit sharing.

Who We Are:

We are a New England-based data storage technology solution provider, specializing in reducing IT risks and costs for mid-size and enterprise-type organizations. We focus on providing IT-based solutions designed to store, manage and protect data assets, along with infrastructure technologies and professional services that provide complete client solutions.

Why Consider this Opportunity?

We have an excellent industry reputation and great manufacturer relationships. We provide solutions using both established vendors as well as leading edge companies. The person we hire can have a key hand in growing our client portfolio and breaking into new markets. We participate in co-op marketing programs that can facilitate in developing solid leads to help you grow your success. We recognize that your success is our success! Oh, and did we mention that the commission plan is uncapped?

Are you that “A” player we’re looking for? If so, please apply to careers@triaxis.com and put "ISS" in the subject.

Please, no agencies as TriAxis is working closely with the State of Connecticut to create jobs and grow the economy!
]]> Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:30:00 -0500 http://www.triaxisinc.com/content/events.php?itemid=101
Check back for updated calendar of technical events!We are working closely with both our customers and our vendors to put together a series of timely educational events that will be worthwhile. Your host for these events will again be Tom Mumford, as he brings his decades of experience into the mix, ensuring that the information is relevant. This schedule should be finalized soon -- stay tuned.]]> Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:20:00 -0500 http://www.triaxisinc.com/content/library.php?itemid=111
SEPATON speeds backup and recovery times for the American Institute of Physics (AIP).AIP is a national organization that promotes the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of physics by providing scholarly professional societies with a diverse range of services, including; print and online publishing, ecommerce and membership data management services and numerous additional resources. When AIP’s IT staff recognized the need to improve their data protection technology, they chose a SEPATON® S2100® virtual tape library (VTL) to get the speed, flexibility, and high availability their organization requires.

The Environment
AIP depends on a sophisticated, centralized Oracle® database system to run its complex operations, including membership and circulation management, journal publication management, and a wide range of business operations.

“Our ability to access and manage data is central to our success as an organization,” said James T. Wonder, Director of Online Technology, AIP. “We have very high standards for our data protection.”

Before choosing SEPATON, AIP was using Qualstar® tape libraries and EMC Net-Worker soft ware to backup and restore their data. As AIP’s data volume continued to increase over time, their backup and restore times were growing longer, putting their stringent recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) at risk. A key issue for AIP was the amount of time required to restore data. Because they sent backup tapes off-site, they had to wait up to six hours for their off-site storage provider to locate and deliver the tapes needed for restores.

“As a rule, we take action well before an issue becomes a crisis,” said Wonder. “We anticipated a need for a faster, more flexible system that would not be disruptive to our existing infrastructure and we immediately began to investigate virtual tape library technology as a solution.”

AIP also wanted a solution that would support their long-term data protection plans. “Over the next four years we plan to move to a tapeless environment,” said Wonder. “Moving to disk will save us time, money and end-user aggravation.”

The Evaluation
The organization chose to evaluate a SEPATON S2100-ES2 VTL solution. Two important factors set SEPATON apart: performance and extensibility. “The SEPATON technology had the backup and restore performance we wanted and it has a long-term product roadmap that dovetails with our four-year plan,” said Wonder. “We felt that SEPATON’s forward-thinking roadmap would enable us to realize our vision of a tapeless environment and it would continue to be an industry-leading technology well into the future.”

AIP performed an extensive on-site evaluation of the SEPATON VTL in a full production environment. “We challenged it in it every way we knew how and it performed perfectly,” said Wonder.

The Solution
AIP installed a 7TB SEPATON S2100-ES2 and continued to use their NetWorker software without changing their policies or procedures. “I can’t believe how easy it was to put it into our environment,” said Wonder. “I plugged it in, turned it on and started using it. The GUI was so easy to use, I was delighted.”

The Results
The AIP organization saw immediate results from their SEPATON system. Backup times have been dramatically reduced and restoring their data has never been faster or easier. “We can find and restore whatever data we need in a few minutes,” said Wonder. “That means our end-users are getting better service and our organization is operating more efficiently.”

In the near term, AIP intends to take advantage of SEPATON’s uniquely scalable technology to grow their SEPATON system in terms of both speed and capacity. “Going forward, we also plan to replace our off -site tape vaulting with the SEPATON Site2 electronic vaulting soft ware and to implement SEPATON’s DeltaStor® software for data deduplication,” said Wonder. “We are very pleased with our investment in SEPATON technology.”]]> Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:54:22 -0500 http://www.triaxisinc.com/content/news.php?itemid=110
T-Finity™ architecture supports extreme scalability.

T-Finity’s Modern Design Ensures Enduring Access to Data Archives and Backups for Enterprise IT, Federal, High Performance Computing and Media/Entertainment Organizations

Spectra Logic, celebrating 30 years of data storage innovation, announced on November 11th, 2009, the industry’s most advanced enterprise tape library that meets demanding archive and backup requirements while saving customers up to 30 percent on initial capital investments and 15 to 20 percent on annual recurring operational expenses. The Spectra T-Finity library offers multiple, redundant robots, scaling to more than 45 petabytes in a single library and to more than 180 petabytes in a single, unified library complex. The T-Finity is targeted for use in data-intensive environments such as large enterprise IT, federal, high performance computing (HPC) and media/entertainment.

“With escalating data volumes and retention requirements, organizations need large archive and backup solutions that ensure long-term data access. The Spectra T-Finity provides superior capacity and stored data access, and its modern design resets expectations on the economic savings achievable with tape storage solutions,” said Nathan Thompson, Spectra Logic’s CEO and founder. “The T-Finity library enables customers to consolidate multiple legacy libraries, reduce initial capital investments, control ongoing operational expense, and ensure investment protection with scalability to meet long-term data growth requirements.”

The Spectra T-Finity provides high availability for 24x7x365 operations - the highest storage density available on the market - and high-speed performance to handle sustained high transaction volumes. These capabilities meet the needs of demanding backup environments, and are key for the growing number of organizations archiving high volume, media-rich data such as research, bio-tech, oil and gas, seismic imaging, surveillance video, media and entertainment, video content and financial applications. And with support for industry-leading LTO open tape technology and IBM System Storage™ TS1130 tape drives, the Spectra T-Finity enables customers to select their preferred enterprise tape option.

“Sites with large data sets and data-intensive environments require intelligent, high-performance and high-capacity backup and archive storage solutions,” said Steve Conway, IDC’s research vice president of technical computing, and HPC User Forum steering committee member. “Spectra Logic’s new T-Finity tape library addresses the demanding storage and productivity requirements of HPC and enterprise markets. It supplies multiple redundant components and unique features, while requiring only a single management interface, thus raising the bar on management simplicity within data-intensive environments.”

Spectra T-Finity delivers enterprise tape library advancements based on a modern design that saves cost while increasing confidence in data integrity and availability on tape:

Highest Density: At 72 terabytes per square foot, the T-Finity provides up to 70 percent higher density than competitive offerings.

Most Scalable: Almost 200 percent more capacity and slots in a single library than leading competitors, the T-Finity scales to more than 30,000 slots in a single library and 120,000 slots in a single library complex. It scales capacity by adding frames non-disruptively, requiring no library downtime.

High Availability Hardware: Delivers up to four nines (99.99%) availability through dual robotics, redundant control and communication paths, and multiple redundant components that increase uptime and support high exchange rate workloads.

Confidence in Data Availability: Spectra’s Lifecycle Management includes proactive library, tape drive and media lifecycle management and reporting to ensure high availability and data integrity. Additionally, Spectra's ScanTape™ functionality verifies the health of tapes before writing data to them, and then verifies the data was successfully written to the tape. No other library on the market offers this complete environmental and data health intelligence.

Most Power Efficient: Extremely efficient, the T-Finity tape library uses half or less of the power per unit of data stored as competitive offerings, minimizing power and cooling costs.

Integrated Data Encryption and Key Management: Spectra’s data encryption enables organizations to secure data and reduce the cost of regulatory compliance.

Unified Management: As the only enterprise-class library with a single management interface, the T-Finity uses Spectra’s BlueScale™ software to simplify administration, configuration, hot upgrades, security and local and remote reporting.

The Spectra T-Finity’s many 'built-in' features include: integrated data encryption; library virtualization and partitioning; and hardware, media and library management software – all included at no additional cost. Competitive offerings charge extra for these capabilities and require separate servers – increasing hardware, space, power, cooling, support contract and personnel management costs.

Pricing and availability
The Spectra T-Finity tape library is currently in beta and will be available in limited quantities starting in December 2009. List pricing for the Spectra T-Finity, including two LTO4 fibre channel drives, two robots, encryption, Spectra library lifecycle management and BlueScale management software, begins at $218,500.

T-Finity is compatible with all major archive and backup software applications including but not limited to: BakBone NetVault, CA ArcServe, and BrightStor, CommVault Sympana, Filetek StorHouse, FrontPorch DIVArchive, IBM HPSS and TSM, Legato DiskExtender and Networker, MassTech MassStore, QStar, Quantum StorNext, SGI DMF, SGL FlashNet, Symantec Backup Exec and NetBackup, Syncsort Backup Express and XenData.

Notes:
(1) Capacity above is based on LTO-5 native capacity
(2) The T-Finity library delivers 72 TB/sq ft, and is 40 to 70 percent more dense than competing libraries, which store 40 to 42 TB/sq ft.
(3) A single T-Finity library unit scales to more than 30,000 slots, more than twice the size of the next largest library—the Sun/STK SL8500—at 10,088 slots in a single library.
(4) The typical power usage of the T-Finity is 873 watts or 0.35 watts/TB, at least half that of competing libraries, which utilize 1,273 to 1,798 watts; or, 0.81 to 2 watts/TB. Assumes maximum slot configurations with twelve drives.]]> Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:42:36 -0500 http://www.triaxisinc.com/content/events.php?itemid=109

...Increase Features

Sign up today and learn how this storage company has changed the "cost of storage" paradigm!All storage administrators, whether employed in large or small enterprises, are continually seeking to reduce the costs associated with data storage while improving service levels. That’s a difficult task with today’s most popular storage vendors.

Sign up today to learn about

a new storage player on the market—Scale Computing. Its Intelligent Clustered Storage (ICS) technology has unlimited “build as you grow” scalability, multi-density flexibility, an extremely simple user interface and a price that’s up to 70% less than Dell, HP, or NetApp. Plus, it’s truly unified storage—SAN/NAS on the same platform.

How this is possible?

I'll give you a 'teaser': Scale uses a license from IBM for a High Performance Computing (HPC) file system, which was developed by IBM for use in the supercomputing world. By using commodity-based hardware and a combination of proprietary and proven licensed software, Scale can offer the future of storage today, and at a price anyone can afford.

Still not convinced? Click here for a an architectural overview.

For the full story, sign up today.

Where/When:
Your desk
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST

Do not miss this opportunity to learn how you can be spending 1/3 of your storage budget without losing a fraction of the functionality and availability.]]> Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:00:00 -0500 http://www.triaxisinc.com/content/events.php?itemid=108
Norwalk Inn & Conference Center
10:00am - 4:00pm
November 12, 2009
Join us for this event on leading storage technologies. This is your chance to pick your time and, in 2-3 hours, be informed about the latest storage technologies, the future direction of storage, hear use cases from your peers in an interactive session, and network with like-minded professionals while seeing live product demonstrations in a hands-on environment.

Co-Sponsoring this Storage Technology Expo, are:



We will take you through the full spectrum of storage lifecycle management, from:

(1) Enterprise Storage and Automated Tiered Storage with Compellent Technologies, to

(2) VTL (Virtual Tape Libraries) and Deduplication with SEPATON, to

(3) Tape Automation and Data Encryption with Spectra Logic.

We've tailored this expo to respond to the "always changing" demands on your time. Although it is an all day event, register and stay for just 2-3 hours and you will gain a high-level understanding of the latest storage technologies. Then, view the exhibits for hands-on demonstrations as well as discussions with vendor engineers. The day's schedule is as follows:

9:15am -- Registration and Continental Breakfast

10:00am -- Opening Remarks and Welcome to Session 1 of the Expo - Tom Mumford, CTO, TriAxis
10:15am -- Automated Tiered Storage for the Enterprise – Mark Mann, Storage Architect, Compellent
10:45am -- VTL and Deduplication for the Enterprise - Doug Licata, Systems Engineer, SEPATON
11:15am -- Tape Automation & Data Encryption – Nick Rosica, NE Manager, Spectra Logic
11:45am -- Compellent Customer Use Case – speaker to be announced

12:00pm -- Refreshments, Networking, Product Demonstrations & Exhibits

1:00pm -- Welcome to Session 2 of the Expo - Tom Mumford, CTO, TriAxis
1:15pm -- Automated Tiered Storage for the Enterprise - Mark Mann, Storage Architect, Compellent
1:45pm -- VTL and Deduplication for the Enterprise - Doug Licata, Systems Engineer, SEPATON
2:15pm -- Tape Automation & Data Encryption - Nick Rosica, NE Manager, Spectra Logic
2:45pm -- SEPATON Customer Use Case – speaker to be announced

3:00pm -- Refreshments, Networking, Product Demonstrations & Exhibits

Join us in the morning, mid-day, or in the afternoon -- whatever works best for you! If you would like to learn more, or if you have a custom requirement, please call 877-TRIAXIS (874-2947) and ask for Tom Mumford.]]> Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:54:13 -0400 http://www.triaxisinc.com/content/partners.php?itemid=49

	BakBone is committed to making data protection a simple, straightforward process while delivering its Universal Data Management (UDM) strategy through an award-winning product suite. This suite provides unprecedented capabilities not only to protect critical data – but more importantly, to ensure the availability of that data as well. BakBone’s products offer a single point of control for managing resources across all platforms, providing improved operational efficiency, reduced system downtime, improved availability and enhanced security to support the business growth of enterprise environments.
	C2C Systems was established in 1992 to develop enterprise messaging solutions to enhance management of email, reduce risk associated with email and improve use of system resources. Today, C2C offers automated data archiving and management for email, files and SharePoint content. Delivering solutions for capacity, e-policy enforcement, compliance and e-discovery, C2C optimizes performance, reduces storage management costs and minimizes risks associated with content. C2C’s software utilities are implemented world-wide and their customers include Fortune 1000 companies across every industry.
	With CommVault's Simpana® software, backup is just the beginning. Simpana software’s single code base and common platform delivers the industry's only true holistic data management solutions. This revolutionary architecture enables companies to immediately reclaim space on primary storage, reduce offsite storage by up to 90 percent, and eliminate up to half their tape drives (not to mention deduplicate data across all tiers as well as archive, preserve, and search information for eDiscovery). The result? Data management cost savings of up to 40 percent, in under one year.
	Traditional storage vendors promise to reduce the amount of time and money spent on storage, but instead deliver a patchwork of complicated and inefficient point products that are difficult to learn, integrate and manage. By starting from scratch, without the burden of software legacy code and the limitations of a proprietary hardware platform, Compellent’s Storage Center was developed into an enterprise-class Storage Area Network (SAN) designed to lower costs, reduce administration, provide high availability and enable virtualization. Compellent's solutions uniquely manage data at the block-level, maximize utilization, automate tiered storage, simplify replication and speed data recovery.
	Data Domain, an EMC company, provides deduplication storage systems that dramatically reduce the amount of disk storage needed to retain and protect enterprise data. By identifying redundant files and data as they are being stored, Data Domain systems provide a storage footprint that is 10x-30x smaller, on average, than the original data set. Backup data can then be efficiently replicated and retrieved over existing networks for streamlined disaster recovery and consolidated tape operations.
	Dell’s EqualLogic storage solutions deliver the benefits of consolidated networked storage in a self-managing, iSCSI storage area network that is affordable and easy to use, regardless of scale. By eliminating complex tasks and enabling fast and flexible storage provisioning, these solutions dramatically reduce the costs of storage acquisition and ongoing operations. With its unique peer storage architecture, the PS Series delivers high performance and availability in a flexible environment with low cost of ownership.
	ExaGrid Systems, Inc. was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Westborough, Massachusetts, with satellite offices throughout the world. The ExaGrid system is a cost effective and scalable disk backup solution that works with your existing backup application. It meets the needs of IT organizations who seek to bring the benefits of an online disk-based data protection system to their current environment while retaining, supplementing or replacing their current offsite tape strategy.
	Infortrend is a leading provider of cost-effective, high performance Networked Storage Solutions. Infortrend's EonStor RAID subsystems support all storage interfaces including Fibre, iSCSI, SAS, SATA and SCSI. Founded in 1993, Infortrend manufactures and markets feature-rich products through a worldwide network of key value added resellers that are strategically placed throughout the world. With leading engineering capabilities and years of experiences, Infortrend can provide highly-adaptive solutions which suit various needs and bring satisfying values to customers.
	Mimosa enables enterprises to harness the value of their unstructured and semi-structured information, and improves business process performance and productivity. As the recognized visionary in enterprise content archiving, Mimosa is driving innovation in the industry and is continually delivering cutting-edge solutions to address the evolving needs of customers around collaboration, communication, productivity and social media. Mimosa Systems delivers next-generation content archiving solutions with its NearPoint™ solution platform. Mimosa NearPoint is the industry's most comprehensive solution unifying email archiving, file archiving, and SharePoint archiving with recovery and storage consolidation.
	In business more than 25 years, Overland Storage delivers robust data backup solutions that are affordable, flexible, and easily integrated into existing network attached storage infrastructures. They offer a broad portfolio of tape libraries and autoloaders, virtual tape libraries, and disk-based backup systems. Overland's fast, reliable disk storage solutions include integrated data protection software, offering users the ultimate in data protection and availability, while remaining cost-conscious for today's economic environment.
	Promise Technology is recognized as a global leader in the storage industry and as an innovator in RAID technology. Everyday enterprise class data centers around the world choose Promise RAID solutions as the technology of choice to protect their critical information and to ensure continuous data availability. Their confidence in these RAID solutions is a reflection of Promise's commitment to providing the quality, reliability and support that these data centers demand. This commitment to quality is why enterprise class performance and reliability can be found in every Promise product.
	Protocol Networks provides professional and managed services to help customers Create, Connect & Evolve their communications across their business to improve their processes and profitability. They focus, not only on getting the right resources to a problem, but also on serving you with “Old Fashioned" customer service, one of their key tenets. We are confident that once you experience their professional customer service, you will understand why we at TriAxis chose them as an extension of our own storage service offerings.
	Scale Computing's architecture is robust, redundant, versatile, and scalable. From the simplest setup to one that employs thousands of bricks, a Scale storage cluster grows seamlessly, and easily managed. It’s also a self-healing storage pool, so even if you were to lose an entire brick due to hardware failure, reckless interns, or marauding ninjas, your entire data store remains fully accessible with no interruption in service. Redundant, scalable, versatile storage – at an affordable price.
	The SEPATON® ContentAware™ approach starts with an architecture that enables them to solve your business problems, from backup performance to energy consumption concerns. In addition to their unique technology, SEPATON provides deep technical and applications expertise and a focused commitment to introducing data protection solutions that enhance existing business and technology operations. SEPATON doesn't just sell boxes; they collaborate with our customers to integrate new and existing technologies to resolve business challenges.
	Spectra Logic provides automated tape backup solutions, disk and deduplication backup solutions, and general data backup solutions that will protect your data efficiently and securely. Their products include innovative features that save you time and money — such as their tape libraries with integrated data encryption, media health monitoring, low power consumption, and easy upgradability and maintenance. Spectra Logic's data protection and archive solutions are changing the world of storage.
	Storage at enterprise data centers continues to grow. But every new technology, strategy, or process raises storage complexity, and the existing multi-vendor storage infrastructures found in most data centers compromise end-to-end visibility and control. Veritas storage software solutions from Symantec are the industry leading heterogeneous solutions to ensure data in the enterprise is protected by leveraging backup and recovery, storage management and archiving technologies.
	With over 12,000 deployments worldwide, Syncsort customers include 96 of the Fortune 100 companies. Syncsort’s Backup Express (BEX) exploits unparalleled technologies to deliver the full suite of data protection capabilities needed to carry your organization well into the future, while providing numerous ways to reap returns. BEX is the only data protection solution to facilitate, in a single product, high-speed backups and recoveries with high success rates, significant data reduction, and zero-impact virtual machine protection – with no side effects and without requiring substantial hardware investments.
	Billions of transactions, millions of emails, thousands of online documents: information is at the heart of a business, and growing like never before. Everything is generating data – from cell phones to PDAs and even cars. As you read this sentence, the flow of data is continuing to expand by billions of bits and bytes. Imagine a world where (1) you can share this information anytime you want, (2) information is at your fingertips, available any time you need, (3) you can save a customer’s documents, a patient’s records, and a satellite’s images – FOREVER, and (4) you can search the archives anytime you want. GridBank™ Technology allows the information and network to be used for what it’s intended – connecting people and information.
	TERiX is the leading independent provider of flexible and innovative hardware and software maintenance service offerings to more than 1,000 customers worldwide, including many of the Fortune 500. TERiXSTORAGE incorporates the same support disciplines that have created clear market differentiation for TERiX server support solutions delivered to thousands of customers since 1997. The difference is that with TERiXSTORAGE offering, there are Proactive Service options (TERiX ProServe) that can add monitoring, heartbeat, analysis and call-home capabilities to standard service level agreement (SLA) metrics.
	Waterford Technologies is the only company that offers Email and File Archiving and Management solutions that are truly easy to install, deploy and use. Since 2001, they have brought to market MailMeter Insight, MailMeter Archive, MailMeter ISR, MailMeter Investigate, MailMeter Storage Manager, MailMeter Compliance Review and, in 2008, MailMeter File Archiver. This expanded the storage savings and management to network file servers. IT departments can automatically monitor and manage the huge amount of individual files across all file servers. It is available for Exchange and Notes environments.

]]> Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:10:00 -0400 http://www.triaxisinc.com/content/library.php?itemid=107
Compellent believes the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Most businesses need both Fibre Channel and iSCSI server connectivity to optimize their storage resources. Fibre Channel delivers the performance required for select applications while iSCSI enables an organization to cost-effectively add new devices to their storage area network by utilizing existing IP infrastructure.

It is Compellent’s position that storage customers shouldn’t be forced to take sides when purchasing a SAN. Customers should be able to choose the technologies that make sense for their IT infrastructure today and still have the flexibility to change technologies as business needs change or implement new technologies as they become available. A highly scalable, standards-based hardware architecture, such as the one Compellent provides, can free customers from technology risk by providing the capability to mix and match server interface or drive technology.

This position brief will explore three reasons it makes sense to select a SAN that allows you to pick the right technology for each application. Customer examples will illustrate how the three reasons play out in the real world.

Reason One: Each Technology Has it’s Place

If customers can design a storage solution specific to their unique needs, they can utilize iSCSI connectivity when manageability and cost are the key criteria, and opt for Fibre Channel when availability and performance are the most important requirements. Fibre Channel was designed for business critical, performance intensive applications like SQL or Exchange databases, while iSCSI works well for file and print and departmental servers.

In reality, as iSCSI becomes a more mature technology, the lines between requirements and results are becoming blurred. Both Fibre Channel and iSCSI technologies have a place in a data center, and Compellent believes customers should be able to choose the right technology for their specific requirements. OfficeWare, a Kentucky-based business equipment dealership, learned this first hand. OfficeWare recently replaced an iSCSI-only SAN after encountering performance issues.

With the initial iSCSI-only SAN, OfficeWare was experiencing considerable delays when copying files and starting up or shutting down servers. When preparing to install a core business management application, the team realized they needed a SAN with higher performance to support OfficeWare’s ongoing growth. “To take our IT organization to the next level of service we needed a flexible, high performance storage solution,” said Chris Resch, chief technology officer for OfficeWare. “To avoid technology lock-in the second time around, we selected a SAN that simultaneously supports Fibre Channel and iSCSI. We get performance with Fibre Channel, while having the flexibility to connect servers via both Fibre Channel and/or iSCSI at any time.”

Reason Two: Affordability Can Put Technology Within Reach

Although Fibre Channel was built specifically for storage, the cost and complexity can put certain technology solutions out of reach for some companies. Compellent believes iSCSI provides businesses the opportunity to implement solutions they couldn’t afford to implement with Fibre Channel. As one of the most frequently required, but least implemented technologies, remote replication is a perfect example.

Many storage administrators find tape backups unreliable, leaving the company exposed to potential data loss. But when it comes time to purchase and implement a remote replication solution, the cost and complexity of Fibre Channel offerings has prevented widespread use.

Remote replication over IP networks can provide a robust and easy to use disaster recovery solution without the complexity or cost of Fibre Channel, bringing business continuance within reach for companies of any size. IP-based replication uses existing networks, infrastructure and staff and is simple to set up and use without specialized training or scripting, making it accessible to companies who might not have been able to implement and manage a Fibre Channel solution.

AHC, the largest attorney based receivables management company in the healthcare industry, selected a storage system that allowed Fibre Channel connectivity for high-performance local operations and iSCSI server connectivity for an otherwise prohibitively priced remote replication solution. AHC can recover in roughly 30 minutes, instead of the weeks it would have taken to recover from tape should a disaster or disruption occur in any of their locations.

“With iSCSI replication, we got business continuity at half the price,” said Chris Stettler, IT director for AHC. “By using SCSI controllers, we can cost-effectively replicate over IP helping us to prepare for and recover quickly from a disaster—a very real possibility for our Boca Raton, Florida office.”

Reason Three: Avoid Technology Lock-in

With the rapid changes in technology, it’s quite possible that three years from now the conversation will shift from Fibre Channel vs. iSCSI to two entirely different technologies. Selecting an iSCSI or Fibre Channel only solution limits flexibility and can lock a business into a single technology, regardless of any technologies that may be on the horizon. It is Compellent’s position that businesses shouldn’t be forced to make difficult technology choices, or bet on any particular technology solution. Selecting a solution that is essentially technology agnostic allows businesses to avoid these unnecessary technology risks.

When purchasing their first SAN, Moss & Associates, the largest construction company in South Florida selected a SAN with the ability to simultaneously support iSCSI and Fibre Channel server connections. This allows Moss to utilize the right technology based on an application’s criticality. “We selected a SAN that allows us to have the best of both worlds without being locked into any given technology. Fibre Channel gives us proven performance and iSCSI allows us to overcome distance limitations and replicate to a co-location facility 60 miles away,” explains Bill Snow, IT Director for Moss.

Moss uses Fibre Channel server connections for their business critical, performance intensive SQL, Exchange and file server applications and iSCSI connections anywhere they don’t need extreme performance. With a standards-based hardware architecture, Moss is freed from technology lock-in and can easily adopt new technologies as they are developed.

Compellent Position: SANs Should Offer Simultaneous Support for iSCSI and Fibre Channel

SANs that offer simultaneous support for iSCSI and Fibre Channel server connections allow businesses to optimize their storage resources, selecting the right technology for each application. Furthermore, the ideal SAN platform should utilize flexible port configurations so that the solution can easily adapt and scale to meet customers changing storage requirements. With a technology independent storage solution, such as Compellent, customers can balance performance and cost, and avoid unnecessary technology lock-in.]]> Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:41:06 -0400 http://www.triaxisinc.com/content/news.php?itemid=106
"Spectra Logic's LTO-5 pre-purchase program is an economical choice that will allow us to scale up without worry," said John Funke, manager of network engineering, ON24 Inc. "When LTO-5 becomes available, we'll be ready and able to drastically increase capacity and performance--without any major configuration changes--while keeping the same footprint in our data center."

The Spectra Logic LTO-5 pre-purchase program provides LTO-4 drives to customers immediately and replaces those loaned drives with LTO-5 when available. LTO-5 is expected to ship from Spectra Logic in April 2010.

"Solid State Solutions (S3) is taking advantage of this Spectra Logic exclusive program-- no other library or drive vendor offers LTO-5 on pre-order," said Gurdip Kalley, business development manager of S3, an Elite SpectraEDGE channel partner based in the United Kingdom. "The unique pre-purchase option gives us an advantage as a reseller, as customers can take advantage of LTO-4 technology today and are guaranteed an upgrade when LTO-5 becomes generally available. We anticipate that 30 percent of our customers will take advantage of Spectra's attractive LTO-5 tape drive pre-purchase program."

"Spectra's exclusive program is particularly advantageous for customers purchasing new libraries today but who would prefer to have the capacity and throughput benefits of LTO-5. US Federal customers purchasing in the September budget cycle and those seeking a drive refresh are able to invest in the next generation technology today," said Molly Rector, Spectra Logic's vice president of marketing and product management. "LTO's consistent and predictable roadmap has enabled storage consolidation and ease of management with 85 to 100 percent increased capacity with each new release. LTO continues to be the standard in half-inch tape technology."

Spectra's LTO-5 drives will include a dual port, native 8Gb fibre channel interface that is compatible with existing 2 gigabit (Gb) and 4Gb fibre channel switches and host bus adapters. LTO-5 will have a native capacity of 1.5 terabytes and an expected native transfer rate of up to 140 megabytes per second. Both capacity and transfer rate can be doubled with compression. LTO will read LTO-3 tapes and read/write LTO-4 and LTO-5 tapes. LTO-5 drives will be fully compatible with Spectra's BlueScale(TM) Encryption and Key Management, Spectra's Media Lifecycle Management (MLM), drive-level AES-256 bit encryption key generation and WORM media capabilities.

Availability

Spectra Logic's pre-purchase program is available now to both end users and channel partners worldwide for Spectra's T-series tape libraries. The Spectra T950, T680, T380, T200, T120 and T50e libraries are all LTO-5 ready and eligible for pre-purchase. LTO-5 pre-purchase customers will be first to receive LTO-5 drives from Spectra when released. ]]> Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:12:59 -0400