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Technology Stocks : Network Appliance -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Beltropolis Boy who wrote (1432)	9/9/1999 12:46:00 AM
From: DownSouth	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 10934

Chris, I am trying to get the skinny on this Dell deal and its implications for NTAP. I think this one caught NTAP by surprise. EDIT: Did some research. Here is what ConvergeNet says on its "Products and Services" web page:October 12, 1999 is the date. Mark it on your calendar. Then join us at GartnerGroup's ITxpo at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida for the unveiling of the industry's first storage domain management technology. You don't want to miss it. To register, or to find out more, visit www.gartnergroup.com/symposium. If you can't attend, we'll be happy to send you detailed product information. Just e-mail us at info@convergenet.com or call us at 1-877-CNVGNET (268-4638). Reading between the lines, it appears to me that this company has some software, probably running on NT and Unix, and perhaps some Fibre Channel components, to control SAN configurations. This is not in competition with NTAP. In fact, could be that NTAP (PowerVault) products would play in the SAN domain being managed by CNVGNET product. Keep in mind folks, there are fundamental diffs between SAN and NAS. SANs are disk storage systems attached to and controlled by traditional NT and Unix servers. The overhead and storage technique inefficiencies of these general purpose servers are not diminished by the SAN approach. SAN is a layer of software on top of the general purpose OS designed to configure and control large storage pools. NAS per NTAP is a special purpose server with a special purpose OS with a special purpose file system. The special purpose is to serve data fast and reliably with minimal sys admin. NAS can be a storage subsystem in a SAN domain. Word is that Dell is wrapping itself around Linux, so expect this new venture to be biased toward Linux as the SAN controller. The preceding regarding the Dell acquisition of privately held ConvergeNet is pure speculation on my part, so don't bank on it. As we learn more, let's share.