Open Storage Leaders Join Forces To Deliver Affordable, High Performance ZFS-based NexentaStor Unified Storage with AoE

 

Alyseo, NexentaStor and CORAID EtherDrive combine for fully featured,

high-performance unified storage that has more than twice the capacity at half the price.

 

SAN CLEMENTE, CA – May 5, 2009 – Leading Open Storage technologists Alyseo SARL, Nexenta Systems, Inc. and CORAID, Inc. today jointly announce the availability of a uniquely capable and affordable Unified Storage solution. NexentaStor from Nexenta Systems now utilizes the efficient ATA-over-Ethernet (AoE) driver from CORAID to create an enterprise-class storage system with extreme performance and unlimited scalability that costs just a fraction of the cost of legacy storage systems. French systems integrator Alyseo spearheaded the collaboration amongst the industry’s leading Open Storage vendors, proving the Open Storage movement has reached critical mass and delivering solutions that surpass legacy proprietary storage solutions – from cost to performance to full features.

 

As a leading Open Storage NAS/SAN software solution, NexentaStor provides a cost-effective, risk-free way to achieve the benefits of high performance enterprise class storage with no vendor lock-in or the burden of legacy proprietary hardware. NexentaStor’s enterprise storage capabilities include unlimited snapshots and file sizes, end to end data integrity checks that can find and correct silent data corruption, and ease of use features as integrated search and simple configuration wizards. NexentaStor and AoE are a proven fit for Alyseo’s delivery of affordable, high-performance fault tolerant unified NAS/SAN storage solutions across their European customer base and have buoyed Alyseo’s place as an independent SAN storage leader in Europe.

 

AoE storage support is now a standard option in NexentaStor offering NexentaStor users and partners a flexible SAN technology with unmatched price performance. CORAID EtherDrive SAN products utilize the open ATA-over-Ethernet (AoE) lightweight network storage protocol. Unlike iSCSI solutions, the AoE protocol transports ATA disk commands over Ethernet without the burden of TCP/IP overhead. EtherDrive SAN uses purpose-built software leveraging commodity components to achieve unparalleled price and performance. EtherDrive SAN products, delivering Fibre Channel speeds at Ethernet prices, offer the best enterprise-class solutions that embrace virtualization for the demands of today’s IT organizations.

 

“For over 3 years Alyseo has been integrating CORAID EtherDrive storage into system solutions for the most scalable high-performance SAN systems at a fraction of the costs of iSCSI or Fibre Channel storage systems,” said Yacine Kheddache, Alyseo’s Managing Director. “The price to performance advantages of EtherDrive SAN storage enables us to create very high-performance, scalable storage using NexentaStor’s NAS gateway. Using SSD and 10-Gigabit Ethernet connections to our EtherDrive SAN, we achieve extremely high NFS performance, and NexentaStor’s thin provisioning and scalability provides for unlimited, simple capacity expansion. The combined solution gives our customers more than twice the storage capacity of legacy proprietary NAS solutions at less than half the cost with a full compliment of advanced capabilities that today’s legacy storage vendors cannot match.”

 

“An Open Storage protocol like ATA-over-Ethernet and its scalability, performance and cost-effectiveness are a perfect match for our ZFS-based NexentaStor,” said Evan Powell, CEO of Nexenta Systems. “Alyseo led the way integrating NexentaStor with EtherDrive storage, and we know other Nexenta partners will be following. The message to our customers and partners is clear: together the Open Storage community now provides solutions that no single legacy storage vendor can hope to match – superior solutions at a fraction of the cost and operating expense of legacy storage systems.”

 

“CORAID has been an active proponent of the open source community for many years and is thrilled to support innovative solutions like the ZFS-based NexentaStor,” said Jim Kemp, CEO of CORAID. “There are important storage features in NexentaStor that will help our joint customers gain great value from these products working together.”

 

For more information on how CORAID’s EtherDrive storage is being used by enterprises all over the world, please contact CORAID at +1-706-548-7200, email sales@coraid.com This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or visit www.coraid.com

 

For more information on NexentaStor and on complete solutions based upon NexentaStor, contact Nexenta Systems at +1-877-862-7770, email sales@nexenta.com This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or visit www.nexenta.com

 

Contact Alyseo for fully packaged and supported hardware solutions or advanced storage integration options at +33 (0)6 60 66 81 53, email sales@alyseo.com This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or visit www.alyseo.com

 

About CORAID, Inc.

 

CORAID’s EtherDrive®, the affordable network storage, provides fast SAN solutions exceeding Fibre Channel speeds at Ethernet prices. CORAID designs and manufactures innovative, affordable network storage appliances based on the open ATA-over-Ethernet (AoE) lightweight network storage protocol. AoE leverages the advantages of Ethernet without the burden of TCP/IP overhead. EtherDrive SAN is the affordable alternative to iSCSI and Fibre Channel. CORAID was recently named among “Linux Magazine’s Top 20 Companies to Watch in 2009” and has won InfoWorld’s BOSSIE Award for Best of Open Source in Storage and Product Excellence Award for Best Data Backup and Storage Solution at the Linux World Expo. For more information, visit www.coraid.com.

 

About Nexenta Systems, Inc.

 

Nexenta Systems has developed NexentaStor(TM), the leading open storage enterprise class NAS/iSCSI solution and sponsors NexentaCore, an open source operating system that combines the high performance and reliability of OpenSolaris with the ease of use and breadth of applications of Linux. Both solutions leverage the revolutionary file system ZFS. More information about Nexenta Systems, Inc. and free trials of the ZFS based NexentaStor can be found at www.nexenta.com or call: (877) 862-7770.

 

About Alyseo SARL

 

Alyseo is a leading storage systems integrator in France. Alyseo offers customers in Europe innovative system solutions based on the best available technologies (NexentaStor, EtherDrive, Fusion-io, Xen and VMware). Thanks to their expertise, Alyseo is a well recognized partner. In 2008 they were awarded Citrix best French xenserver reseller. For more information and try & buy, email  sales@alyseo.com This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  or visit www.alyseo.com - www.coraid.fr - www.fusionio.fr

 

# # #

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CORAID and EtherDrive are registered trademarks of CORAID, Inc. NexentaStor is a registered trademark if Nexenta Systems, Inc. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

 

 

Bron: http://www.nexenta.com/corp/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=2&Itemid=159 

 

INPROVE levert de Open Storage oplossingen van Nexenta.

Voor meer informatie kijk op www.inprove.nl

CUPERTINO, Calif., April 11 /PRNewswire/ — Nexenta Systems, Inc.,
announced the launch of an ‘Enterprise Certified’ partner program today as
well as examples of partners who are already building complete storage
management and backup solutions based upon NexentaStor Enterprise Edition.
Current partners include:

    –  Technologent, a  U.S. based Sun Executive Partner, who has created a
        number of solution packages that include NexentaStor as well as Sun’s
        ground breaking storage servers and other technologies.
    –  With & Company, a leading provider of data protection and backup
        consulting services in Korea.  With & Company focuses on data
        replication, archiving, high availability, disaster recovery and
        real-time backup for Industry standard OS servers.
    –  Cold Creek Solutions, a U.S. based storage integrator focusing on
        technology planning services, enabling enterprises to develop a
        comprehensive approach to storage and related technologies.  Specific
        capabilities include the development of plans and tiered architectures
        to enable business continuity and disaster recovery while minimizing
        cost, risk and complexity.
    –  Inprove IT Infrastructure Solutions, a Netherlands based integrator and Sun Partner providing
        industry standard storage solutions plus consulting to many of the
        leading customers in the Benelux countries, including KPN,
        Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Phillips and others.

    CEO of Nexenta, Evan Powell, said: “I am glad to announce our
Enterprise Certified partner program and to highlight a few of our initial
partners who are leveraging NexentaStor Enterprise Edition to provide
storage management with capabilities that include unlimited incremental
backups, multi-level data integrity, inherent virtualization, flexible
disaster recovery and integrated search and restore.”

    Via the NexentaStor Enterprise Certified program, partners work with
Nexenta to certify that their solutions meet the needs of end customers.
The program further frees customers from the constraints of the closed
technologies and business models of legacy hardware based storage vendors
by allowing solution providers, resellers and integrators to bundle
NexentaStor Enterprise Edition into their solutions.

    About Nexenta Systems, Inc.

    Founded in 2005 and privately held, Nexenta Systems, Inc., has
developed NexentaStor, the leading open source based enterprise class
storage solution and sponsors NexentaCore, an operating system that
combines the high performance and reliability of OpenSolaris with the ease
of use and breadth of applications of Linux. Both solutions leverage the
revolutionary file system ZFS as well as other open source technologies.
More information about Nexenta Systems, Inc., can be found at
http://www.nexenta.com

    The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the
trademarks of their respective owners.

 

Bron: http://www.nexenta.com/corp/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=84&Itemid=159

 

INPROVE levert de Open Storage oplossingen van Nexenta.

Voor meer informatie kijk op www.inprove.nl

Version 1.1.7

April 08, 2009

·         number of important CIFS and ZFS bug fixes

·         drive to slot mapping facility (NMC integrated, drive LEDs)

·         support for GlobalSAN Initiator

·         improved Simple Failover plugin

·         UPS plugin (new)

·         improved DTrace analytics

·         improved ACL management

·         improved Initial Configuration Wizard (see the demonstration)

·         improved web GUI (NMV)

Note:

·         Storage services have moved! In the web GUI, the new location for storage services is under Data Management => Shares, as shown on this screenshot.

Known Problem:

·         Disks greater than 1TB are not supported yet.

Older versions of the appliance software

1.1.6

March 26, 2009

·         Web GUI: mutli-theme support, new look-and-feel, integrated DTrace. See changelog for details, and screenshots: status, folders and shares, data management services, storage, network, faults.

·         Root filesystem and system configuration: backup and restore (see traveling OS)

·         Slot to disk mapping facility (available upon request for partners and hardware vendors)

·         Keeping two local folders synchronized at all times.. This, and other advanced Data Replication features and improvements

·         COMSTAR target works now with ESX 3.5

1.1.5

February 27, 2009

·         COMSTAR

·         Web GUI: multiple improvements

·         CIFS server: bug fixes, improvements

·         ZFS: bug fixes, improvements

·         NFS: bug fixes, improvements

Known Problem:

·         Your appliance will not upgrade to 1.1.5 if it was installed with a pre 1.1 version of the software. To find out the very first installed version, please run ’show appliance checkpoint’. This problem was caused by addition of COMSTAR; it will be fixed in the next (1.1.6) release.

1.1.4 

·         CIFS/AD - Workaround for (TRUSTED FOR DELEGATION) CR 6764696

·         CIFS/AD - Windows <=> Unix users and groups identity mapping works now

·         User Guide - updated and revised CIFS Tutorial

·         Broadcom and Intel adapters - a number of new devices supported

·         GUI theme - initial support in place

·         ZFS adaptive replacement cache - improved operation for solid state drives (SSDs)

Known Problems:

·         After upgrading from the previous (1.1.3) version, make sure to exit from NMC and re-login.

1.1.3

·         CIFS - multiple bug fixes, improvements

·         iSCSI - multiple Initiator bug fixes, improvements

·         CLI and web GUI - multiple usability fixes, improvements

·         network performance benchmark

1.1.2

·         CIFS - multiple bug fixes, improvements

·         Updated man pages

·         Automatic recovery of iSCSI attached LUNs

·         Installer improvements

Known Problems:

·         1.1.2 upgrades are now available. For upgrading from the previous (1.1.1) version, please use the following workaround:

1.1.1 

·         OpenSolaris build 104, integrated and stabilized

·         CIFS workgroup mode - major improvements

·         ATA Over Ethernet (AOE)  - major improvements 

·         DTrace integration 

·         ZFS ARC statistics

·         VM DataCenter - major improvements (NFS and iSCSI based data stores, templates)

·         Installer:

1.    Xen support. NexentaStor can now be installed in Xen domU

2.    64bit. Installer will operate in 64bit mode on 64bit platforms

Known Problems:

·         To join a multi-domain Active Directory environment, the accounts are required to have TRUSTED_FOR_DELEGATION privilege typically granted to members of Domain Admins group or similar (CR 6764696). Update 01/30/09: This problem is addressed in the latest (1.1.4) version.

1.1.0

·         Major release: multiple usability and core functionality improvements on top of NexentaStor 1.0.x

·         Better CIFS/AD integration

·         Improved fault management of underlying hardware

o    Extensions - Plugins:

1.    High Availability

2.    VM DataCenter

3.    WORM

1.0.9

·         Simple-failover plugin: semi-automated failover in a group of N (N>=2) appliances (beta)

·         VM DataCenter plugin: integrated ESX/NexentaStor management (beta)

1.0.8 

·         improved disk monitoring and fault management

·         improved device hot plug

·         Intel 10G PCIe driver now included

·         improved 3rd party drivers support

1.0.7

·         Write Once, Read Many (WORM)

·         auto-services automated retry once/if remote peer becomes reachable

·         create and grow volume: handle cache devices

·         SMTP over TLS

·         auto-cdp service (CDP) multiple improvements and fixes 

·         iSCSI target improvements and fixes

·         ATA over Ethernet (AOE)

·         autoreplace: hot plug a drive when replaced

1.0.6 and 1.0.5

·         Bug fixes and improvements

·         NexentaStor API

·         NexentaStor plugin infrastructure and the first pluggable modules, including:

o    auto-cdp

o    I/O benchmark

o    network utilization

·         zvol: support <volume>/<folder>/<zvol> hierarchy

·         iSCSI target portal groups

·         rsync protocol version 30

·         Storage Appliance API (SA-API) and SDK for Windows

·         NMC ‘help keyword’

Important Notice:

·         The release carries a number of improvements and changes that may effect inter-appliance communication in case of the difference in versions. Please make sure to upgrade all your existing NexentaStor appliances to version 1.0.5 or later.

1.0.4 

·         NMV: support volume growing

·         auto-cdp: LUN level recovery

·         LDAP: support large (tens of thousands of records) directories

·         Bug fixes and improvements

1.0.3

·         NMV: ability to switch transport HTTP <=> HTTPS

·         Improved auto-cdp observability

·         show scrub-in-progress

·         Bug: password is not correctly set for a newly created user

·         Feature: ‘zfs list/get’ and ‘zpool list/get/status’

·         NMC to support write-cache enable/disable

1.0.2

·         NMCD as a reliable SMF service

·         Dynamic volroot, to support volumes mounting at arbitrary mountpoint 

·         Integrated ON patch: “write throttle results in excessive delay”

·         IBM ServeRAID SATA (IPS) driver

·         Folders’ creation-time properties and versioning

·         NMV additional interfaces: lunsync, volume version

·         Auto-CDP: automate disk assignments

·         Bug fixes 

1.0.1

·         Integrated User/Group (LDAP, local) and ACL management

·         Jumbo frames (that is, change MTU) - for all major 1GE and 10GE NICs

·         Provide syncing/tiering live traffic statistics

·         Install appliance via serial port

·         Improvements in Fault Management and Data Replication services

·         Bug fixes 

1.0

·         Yet another bug fixing iteration

·         software watchdog

·         reboot time reduced 3x to 7x

·         management of system settings (including ZIL)

·         file/directory sharing via WebDAV (beta)

 

Bron: http://www.nexenta.com/corp/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=61&Itemid=159

 

INPROVE levert de Open Storage oplossingen van Nexenta.

Voor meer informatie kijk op www.inprove.nl

5 April, 2009

                Door Evan Powell

 

 

Oke, gezien onze start in het eerste kwartaal van 2008, waarin we nog niet echt waren begonnen te verkopen – maar toch een aantal licenties verkochten – het groeipercentage is natuurlijk bijna oneindig.

 

Misschien meer indrukwekkend is dat we een groot aantal gebruikers zien en dat we een redelijk aantal herhaalde gebruikers hebben. We zijn hard bezig om April 2009 af te sluiten met over de 300 verkopen in onze eerste 12 maanden verkoop. Ik was aan het ontbijten met een vriend die een analist is en vroeg hem of hij wel eens een storage bedrijf heeft gezien met 256+ verkopen (en hoger) in 12 maanden. Zijn antwoord was dat hij niet zeker was dat hij ooit een beginnend bedrijf zo snel heeft zien starten in de enterprise IT markt.

 

Ik veronderstel dat hij hoopte dat ik de rekening betaalde.

 

Maar serieus, iedereen bedankt die ons heeft geholpen een recordkwartaal te behalen het laatste kwartaal en een speciaal bedankje voor iedereen die nu zijn orders plaatst zodat we ons doel van 300 verkopen voorbij kunnen schieten aan het eind van ons eerste verkoopjaar.

 

INPROVE levert de Open Storage oplossingen van Nexenta.

Voor meer informatie kijk op www.inprove.nl

 

 

 

Palo Alto, CA/Luton, UK — March 24, 2009 — Nexenta Systems, Inc., developer of NexentaStor™, the leading open storage solution based upon the revolutionary file system ZFS, has announced a partnership with VA Technologies, a leading supplier of High Performance Servers, Storage and Workstations in the UK and Europe.   VA Technologies and Nexenta are partnering to deliver Enterprise Class storage solutions with optional clustering capabilities.  The NexentaStor based solutions offered by VA Technologies, including their OpenStor storage array and their COBALTSTOR-Z NAS cluster, are delivering enterprise class performance at a fraction of the cost of proprietary solutions. 

Recent benchmark test results using Bonnie++ and Iozone demonstrate CobaltStorZ performance at: - 1.2 GB/sec per second writes - 2 GB/sec per second reads  These results are in a standard configuration with the COBALTSTOR-Z connecting to 5 OpenStor arrays via 10GbE.  More details about the engineering behind these impressive results are available directly from VA Technologies. 

“We’re very excited about joining the community of Nexenta partners. NexentaStor allows us to deliver enterprise class storage appliances that provide unprecedented scalability, resilience and performance to the marketplace” said Andy Bennett Technical Sales Manager of VA Technologies.  “Our OpenStor storage appliance based on NexentaStor™ brings high performance, high availability Block and File I/O to a single platform.  OpenStor also provides a wealth of connectivity options from standard Gigabit Ethernet as well higher performing connectivity such as 10GbE and low latency Infiniband for HPC clusters all of which can be configured so that multiple interfaces work together to accelerate aggregate performance.”  

The OpenStor storage appliances provide storage for the VA Technologies COBALTSTOR-Z clustered NAS which is also based upon NexenaStor.  The COBALSTOR-Z delivers Enterprise Class features such as automatic failover of head nodes, virtually unlimited file system size, single namespace, integrated search features, block level real time mirroring and infinite snapshots for backup and for disaster recovery.  The revolutionary ZFS file system at the heart of NexentaStor eliminates the growing risk of silent data corruption through an integrated approach that includes RAIDZ and RAIDZ2 as well as end to end checksum algorithms for every transaction that together identify and correct data corruption before it has a chance to proliferate through the storage system.   

Evan Powell, CEO of Nexenta Systems, said “we are growing quickly thanks in large part to partners like VA Technologies who are delivering the storage industry’s best price/performance and price/capacity to their customers.  We’re extremely pleased to see the work that VA Technologies has done particularly in the areas of high availability and high performance.  The COBALSTOR-Z is more proof that high quality systems integrators can deliver industry leading solutions that incorporate NexentaStor.” 

About Nexenta Systems  Nexenta Systems, Inc., has developed NexentaStor(TM), the leading open storage enterprise class NAS/iSCSI solution and sponsors NexentaCore, an open source operating system that combines the high performance and reliability of OpenSolaris with the ease of use and breadth of applications of Linux. Both solutions leverage the revolutionary file system ZFS. More information about Nexenta Systems, Inc. and free trials of the ZFS based NexentaStor can be found at www.nexenta.com or call: (877) 862-7770.  

About VA Technologies VA Technologies is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of High Performance Servers, Storage and Workstations. VA specialises in designing complete solutions to solve today’s IT Infrastructure issues. The Company has been involved in building bespoke systems for some of the UK’s largest Film and Television Studios, Research Establishments and Universities, Financial Institutions and FTSE 500 Companies.  VA Technologies sells, supports and integrates NexentaStor in the UK and Europe.

 

Bron: http://www.nexenta.com/corp/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=2&Itemid=159

 

INPROVE levert de Open Storage oplossingen van Nexenta.

Voor meer informatie kijk op www.inprove.nl

Palo Alto, CA, March 18, 2009 — Nexenta Systems today announced that the leading European retailer Coltex, well known for the Didi, Steps, Forecast and SPS Superstar brands, is using NexentaStor to provide storage to their VMware ESX 3.5 infrastructure which provides IT services to over 380 stores in the Benelux region.  The leading Netherlands based integrator Inprove IT Infrastructure Solutions (Inprove) has provided the NexentaStor software and services to Coltex. Wilco Nierop, IT Manager, Coltex BV said:  “We are quite happy with the performance and ease of use of NexentaStor.  The integrated support for ESX and for 10G Ethernet plus the high performance NFS has allowed us to significantly improve the cost / performance of the storage for our ESX 3.5 systems.”  NexentaStor is the leading hardware independent OpenStorage NAS/iSCSI solution based on the ZFS file system and is a VMware Technology Alliance Partner.  Unlike other storage solutions, NexentaStor provides enterprise class network attached storage and iSCSI capabilities via a hardware independent model.  Customers can select their hardware and service partner of choice and buy all in one solutions from these preferred vendors.  In the case of Coltex the NexentaStor partner chosen is Inprove, a Netherlands based storage systems integrator who is certified by NexentaStor to provide total solutions including NexentaStor, services, and industry standard hardware and storage systems.   Advantages of NexentaStor as storage for VMware ESX  - high performance NFS and iSCSI in a hardware independent OpenStorage solution- VM Data Center optional module allowing for simple storage management, cloning, and control of ESX deployments- the ability to run NexentaStor on ESX to deliver storage to ESX, which has proven particularly useful for remote and branch offices- native thin provisioning so administrators can over-provision capacity, and add disks as needed - unmatched protection against silent data corruption, via end-to-end checksums and automatic error correction - automated use of SSDs to accelerate performance  Prices from Inprove start as low as $3,300 for a powerful 1U appliance solution that can be easily expanded via SAS ports and JBODs.  NexentaStor and Inprove are providing customers with world-class storage at a fraction of the cost of legacy solutions.  More information on Coltex’s use of NexentaStor, including their particular hardware configurations and operating environment, can be found at: www.nexenta.com/solutions.   About Nexenta Systems  Founded in 2005 and privately held, Nexenta Systems, Inc., has developed NexentaStor(TM), the leading open storage enterprise class NAS/iSCSI solution and sponsors NexentaCore, an open source operating system that combines the high performance and reliability of OpenSolaris with the ease of use and breadth of applications of Linux. Both solutions leverage the revolutionary file system ZFS. More information about Nexenta Systems, Inc. and free trials of the ZFS based NexentaStor can be found at www.nexenta.com or call: (877) 862-7770. Day to day info on Nexenta can be found on Twitter: @nexenta.  About Inprove IT Infrastructure Solutions Inprove is a leading integrator of professional IT infrastructures, with a clear focus on storage and virtualization. Founded in 2002 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Inprove is quickly growing due to the success of their customers, who have high IT demands, especially for storage.  Inprove delivers them the highest performing and best priced OpenStorage solutions in the market. Inprove is a VMware Certified System Builder and NexentaStor Certified. More info on NexentaStor storage solutions and try and buy offers can be found on http://www.inprove.nl/zfs.

 

Bron: http://www.nexenta.com/corp/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=231&Itemid=159

 

INPROVE levert de Open Storage oplossingen van Nexenta.

Voor meer informatie kijk op www.inprove.nl

 

Storage Concepts is a European, Competence and Technical Support Center for Nexenta Systems.

This article, published in LanLine Magazine, focuses on the storage management needs of medium sized businesses, and the advantages of implementing open platforms and new technologies, like NexentaStor.

Click here read the article (German).

 

Bron: http://www.nexenta.com/corp/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=217&Itemid=159

 

INPROVE levert de Open Storage oplossingen van Nexenta.

Voor meer informatie kijk op www.inprove.nl

Palo Alto, CA, February 25, 2009 — Nexenta Systems, the leading provider of OpenStorage NAS and iSCSI solutions utilizing the ZFS file system, today announced partnerships with leading systems integrators and solution providers worldwide.  NexentaStor is now available as the foundation of total solutions including the breakthrough price/performance and price/capacity of NexentaStor throughout the United States, Europe, and India.  Today Nexenta also announces a partnership with Indra Networks to provide hardware based GZIP compression integrated with NexentaStor. 

“We believe NexentaStor offers a unique value proposition to leading system integrators and solution providers who, for the first time, are able to enter the market for enterprise class storage with a software-based NAS and iSCSI solution that delivers capabilities that are in many cases superior to legacy hardware based solutions at a fraction of the cost.  With the aid of our partners world-wide we are executing on our vision of enterprise class storage for everyone,” said Evan Powell, CEO of Nexenta Systems.  

New partners joining the Nexenta partner program include:

VA Technologies, the United Kingdom:  VA Technologies is a leading provider of server and storage solutions for the United Kingdom and Europe.  Andy Bennett Technical Sales Manager of VA Technologies said “We’re very excited about joining the community of Nexenta partners.  NexentaStor allows us to bring Enterprise Class Storage Appliances that provide unprecedented scalability, data integrity, and performance to the marketplace.  Our OpenStor storage appliance based on NexentaStor brings high performance, high availability Block and File I/O to a single platform.” 

Dynamic Network Factory, United States:  Since 1998, DNF has delivered a wide range of storage solutions, from direct attached storage for small business, to enterprise applications, networked storage, iSCSI and file servers in capacities from 1TB to 10PB.  According to Mo Tahmasebi, president and CEO of DNF, “For more than a decade, DNF has successfully addressed the storage management demands of enterprise customers throughout the world. As data grows exponentially, these customers continue to require open platform tools such as NexentaStor, which is not only scalable and robust, but also cost-effective and user-friendly. We are pleased to partner with Nexenta to bring an exciting new dimension to our integrated storage offerings for enterprises of all sizes.”

Accelera Systems, India:  Accelera Systems is launching a series of NexentaStor based solutions to customers and partners throughout India in partnership with HP and HP partners.  Vivek Hirpathak, COO of Accelera Systems noted, “Nexenta’s business model offers compelling capabilities to storage customers and systems vendors and we look forward to representing Nexenta to partners and end users in India.”  Accelera is providing presales and post sales support to NexentaStor partners and end users throughout India.

StorageConcepts, Germany:  StorageConcepts, a subsidiary of Computer Concepts, provides HA systems design and storage integration services to medium sized and enterprise companies in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Eastern Europe.  As a value added distributor (VAD) and technical support center providing presales and post sales support, StorageConcepts is now offering solutions based on NexentaStor directly and through channel partners.  To quote Gerd Jelinek, Managing Director, “We have seen interest in NexentaStor from our highly demanding customers and partners and we are building a strong business with this advanced open storage platform.”

Indra Networks, Inc., United States:  Today Nexenta and Indra Networks announce the integration of the StorCompress 300 compression card in NexentaStor to further improve the price/performance and price/capacity of NexentaStor.  StorCompress 300 is available immediately, through Nexenta’s partners and provides standards based GZIP compression that further accelerates the performance of NexentaStor while reducing the amount of storage required.  CEO of Indra Networks, Monish Shah, said, “We are happy to be partnering with Nexenta to provide NexentaStor optimized storage compression and we look forward to collaborating with Nexenta on other complementary products.”

NexentaStor leverages the ZFS file system to provide price / performance that can save customers 70% or more while providing superior data integrity, ease of use, and scalability versus legacy storage solutions.  In addition, the VM Data Center plug-in offered by Nexenta is uniquely able to simplify and accelerate the process of managing the storage and protection of virtual machines.  NexentaStor is available as a software appliance, meaning that it installs as a bare metal install on standard x86 servers.  NexentaStor is also available from partners such as PogoLinux in the United States, Inprove in the Netherlands, those listed in this article, and many others who provide NexentaStor on certified hardware to their customers. 

About Nexenta Systems

Founded in 2005 and privately held, Nexenta Systems, Inc., has developed NexentaStor(TM), the leading open storage enterprise class storage solution and sponsors NexentaCore, an open source operating system that combines the high performance and reliability of OpenSolaris with the ease of use and breadth of applications of Linux.  Both solutions leverage the revolutionary file system ZFS.  More information about Nexenta Systems, Inc. and free trials of the ZFS based NexentaStor can be found at www.nexenta.com or call: (877) 862-7770.

 

Bron: http://www.nexenta.com/corp/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=213&Itemid=159

 

INPROVE levert de Open Storage oplossingen van Nexenta.

Voor meer informatie kijk op www.inprove.nl

The following article appeared in SearchSMBStorage, a TechTarget publication, on February 25th, 2009. 

Unlike the other solutions mentioned, NexentaStor is unified storage, providing BOTH NAS and SAN capabilities.  All of the other solutions are SAN or backup solutions only and do not offer the ease of use of the ZFS based NAS and iSCSI capabilities of NexentaStor:

Thin provisioning storage products for SMBs

Ann Silverthorn
02.25.2009 

Two years ago, business growth strained all facets of the New York City-based Visual Trading Systems’ IT infrastructure. The SMB, which provides IT services to companies involved in foreign exchange, experienced increased storage demands but couldn’t automatically use excess capacity that resided in its four data centers and 10 offices around the world. Storage resources were pre-allocated and required manual provisioning to provide additional storage to applications that were running low.

John Duffy, the company’s enterprise architect, selected 3PAR’s InServ Storage Server with thin provisioning in June of 2007 to aggregate unused capacity into a virtual pool that could be shared across the organization. As a result, storage utilization rates now approach 80% — much better than Visual Trading Systems’ historical average of 25% for Windows storage and 50% for Unix storage.

Traditionally, if an application is forecasted to consume a terabyte of storage space over a five-year period, the entire terabyte is purchased and deployed in the first year. The extra drives use up electricity and occupy dataroom real estate, while generating heat, which requires cooling. With thin provisioning, excess storage capacity across the organization is automatically provisioned to applications that experience a storage deficit.

Most thin provisioning occurs within storage area networks (SANs) that employ storage virtualization. The SAN separates storage from servers, and virtualization makes capacity appear to users and administrators as one volume. Users have enough storage to do their jobs without interruption, and administrators can better manage and forecast storage capacity requirements.

Regarding forecasting, Duffy said that thin provisioning technology shouldn’t be used alone to predict storage needs. “The bulk of forecasting is more of an art than a science. You have to blend current business growth requirements, new business growth requirements and efficient administration to do a proper job of forecasting,” he said.

Another SMB, RealTime Services Group Inc., which provides service and support to small staffing firms, has been using thin provisioning for two years. Jeff Sabotin, director of IT, selected DataCore Software Corp.’s SANmelody software for his 12 servers at an initial cost of $25,000. Prior to the installation, some of RealTime’s servers had plenty of storage available and some sorely needed more.

“Expanding and adding partitions took a lot of time, so thin provisioning was a big deal for us,” Sabotin said. “We’re a small shop, and we don’t have a ton of money.”

What to look for in a thin provisioning product

SMBs researching thin provisioning will have to consider their budgets. Thin provisioning solutions vary greatly in price and without enterprise economies of scale, the costs will consume a greater proportion of SMBs’ budgets than that of their larger counterparts.

In addition, SMBs will discover both hardware-based and software-alone thin provisioning solutions. Appliance or array-based products tout the ability to manage thin provisioning’s I/Os without a significantly slowing down on the system. Software-based products are attractive to SMBs that want to utilize existing resources and don’t want to get trapped in a proprietary solution.

Info-Tech Research Group Analyst John Sloan said a recent trend in thin provisioning is its marketing as a “green” technology that reduces the data center’s carbon footprint. But even organizations that value efficiency over environmentalism might still be attracted to thin provisioning.

“The bottom line is that decreasing power consumption and improving utilization will save money, even in a small implementation,” said Sloan. “If you waste less, you’ll save more. Efficiency is never a bad thing.”

Noemi Greyzdorf, IDC research manager, expects thin provisioning to get easier to implement and more flexible in its design. But she warns that thin provisioning is not for everyone.

“Across all enterprises, large and small, thin provisioning is desirable when your goal is to realize higher utilization rates on your storage resources,” said Greyzdorf. “If you’re looking to aggregate from direct-attached storage (DAS) to a SAN, thin provisioning is your friend. Thin provisioning doesn’t apply when you have certain performance requirements that trump capacity provisioning.”

A sampling of thin provisioning products

The following is a sampling of thin provisioning products for SMBs.

3PAR InServ Storage Server
Thin provisioning is bundled in 3PAR’s InServ Storage Server and is billed as “green” technology. It’s designed to cut capacity and related costs while reducing storage and system administration. Organizations provision virtual capacity once and purchase pooled physical capacity only as applications require it for written data. The InServ Storage Server pricing is based on the amount of written capacity. A 3PAR E200 InServ Storage Server, with the InForm operating system and thin provisioning, costs $70,000.

DataCore SANmelody
SANmelody Starter SAN software converts standard Intel/AMD servers, blades or virtual machines into storage servers that virtualize disks and serve them over existing networks to application servers. The software includes thin provisioning, data-migration technology, storage-performance caching, snapshots, remote site disaster recovery replication and data protection. SANmelody Starter SAN packages cost under $2,000 per server.

EMC Corp. Virtual Provisioning 
Virtual thin provisioning runs on Symmetrix, Celerra and Clariion platforms. It assigns capacity to a maximum requirement while physically provisioning a smaller amount to meet initial needs. It reports physical usage, logical size and available pooled capacity so administrators can set alerts to avoid running out of physical capacity. SMBs typically use Celerra platforms, which start at $20,015 for an NX4 single-blade system with 4 TB of SATA storage.

FalconStor Software Network Storage Server (NSS)
FalconStor NSS appliances help automate storage resource allocation and capacity management while virtualization provides centralized management for heterogeneous storage environments. In addition to thin provisioning, FalconStor NSS offers data mirroring, snapshots, WAN-optimized IP replication and synchronous mirroring. NSS can also be purchased as software appliance kits to install on servers. The starting price is $2,000 for the FalconStor NSS Virtual Appliance.

Fujitsu Eternus
Eternus storage systems range from entry-level modular to high-end monolithic systems. Fujitsu claims that the SMB version offers the same functionality as its high-end storage products. The storage virtualization allocates necessary volumes dynamically according to the operational situation. Thin provisioning will be a standard offering in mid-2009 for the Eternus8000 and Eternus4000. Eternus2000 has an entry price of $10,500 and Eternus4000 has an entry price of $40,000.

Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Dynamic Provisioning
Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning (HDP) software is thin provisioning software that provides virtual storage capacity to simplify the administration of new storage, eliminate application service interruptions and reduce costs. HDP reduces both capital and operating expenses by pushing out storage acquisition and improving operational efficiencies. Hewlett Packard (HP) Co. and Sun Microsystems Inc. use the HDS dynamic provisioning in their products.

HP StorageWorks EVA Dynamic Capacity Management
The StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) thin provisioning feature automatically “right-sizes” the supported file system and virtual-disk storage volume to the needs of an application. It also allows space reclaiming (i.e., LUN shrink) with Windows 2008 and with other operating systems in the future. Scalable to the SMB in function and pricing, the list price for 1 TB of storage on the EVA4400 disk array is $1,350.

LeftHand Networks Inc. SAN/iQ
SAN/iQ software allows customers to create pools of storage by consolidating individual storage nodes on the network into a storage cluster. All available physical capacity is aggregated and available to the volumes created on a SAN. Administrators can expand volumes and add storage nodes online without taking the volumes offline or causing application downtime. A LeftHand 1 TB NSM 160 SAN platform with SAN/iQ software costs around $13,000. LeftHand Networks is an HP company.

Nexenta Systems Inc. NexentaStor
NexentaStor is a NAS/iSCSI solution based on the ZFS file system, which was developed by Sun. Along with thin provisioning, the appliance offers storage virtualization, unlimited snapshots, common Internet file system (CIFS), network file system (NFS), iSCSI, storage tiering, block-level mirroring, write once, read many (WORM), high availability and management of VMware ESX environments. NexentaStor costs $1,100 at the SMB level.

STORServer SAN Appliances
STORServer’s SAN appliances are managed with a single interface that speeds up both common and complex storage tasks. It provisions unlimited volumes from a single pool and allocates volumes of any size while consuming only physical capacity when data is written by the application. The appliances range in cost from $25,000 to $75,000.

About this author: Ann Silverthorn has been writing articles and white papers about the management, storage, and protection of data for nearly a decade. She can be contacted at ann@annsilverthorn.com.

 

Bron: http://www.nexenta.com/corp/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=214&Itemid=159

 

INPROVE levert de Open Storage oplossingen van Nexenta.

Voor meer informatie kijk op www.inprove.nl

by Roger Bitar
October 2008

The CPU to storage bottleneck is hampering overall system performance — a trend that continues unabated as system performance outpaces disk throughput year over year. The disparity in IOPS between the system and disks, and the I/O bottleneck introduced forces CPU cycles to be lost waiting for I/O to complete, impacting system throughput and application performance.
To compensate, IT managers typically add more external devices and DRAM to help speed throughput. More DRAM lets systems store working sets in memory to avoid disk latency, and adding disk spindles can help reduce seek times and increase IOPS. However, the result is an expensive infrastructure that is difficult to manage. For example, a large-scale online transaction processing (OLTP) system can cost nearly $3M, with over 74 percent of total system cost going toward storage performance.

This article discusses a new approach to enterprise storage management. By combining Flash technology and the Solaris ZFS file system, companies can combine the high performance of enterprise solid state drives (SSDs) with the low cost of high-capacity hard disks to create solutions that help balance system performance and cost.

 

Meer informatie? Klik hier.

 

Bron: http://www.sun.com/storage/openstorage/news.jsp

 

INPROVE levert de Open Storage oplossingen van Sun.

Voor meer informatie kijk op www.inprove.nl