Stockman Scott-- here are some facts <G>
another good article on the dell-ntap storage servers that I do
not believe has been posted here.
courtesy of the NTAP Board
I especially like this part:
>> According to Barnes, sites where the solution has been installed have
seen dramatic improvements in file access performance. Barnes also
noted that the implementation of a NAS has allowed Parsons to
optimize its application servers for running their specific applications.<<
and >>"If you have a more heterogenous world, like most Fortune 1000
companies, a NAS may actually be a better solution [than a SAN]," said
Carl Howe, research director at Forrester Research, in Cambridge,
Mass.<<
---------------------------->
Posted at 7:11 AM PT, May 3, 1999
As corporate data begins to accumulate across every facet of company
IT infrastructures, all of the major PC vendors are filing into the storage
arena, with Dell staking out a wide swath of territory early.
Dell, which in February announced its storage area network (SAN)
solution, this week is enhancing its storage offerings with a series of
network-attached storage (NAS) solutions, called PowerVault filers.
Unlike SANs, which are designed to provide robust, fault-tolerant storage
for mission-critical data, Dell's NAS is designed to off-load file access
functions from front-end servers by storing and serving
files directly to clients.
"A NAS does one thing and one thing well, and that is feed data to
clients," said Kevin Reinis, general manager of storage systems at Dell.
"That allows you to off-load servers from data so they can run
applications more efficiently."
Parsons, an engineering and construction company in Pasadena, Calif.,
has been using a similar solution from Dell partner Network Appliance to
handle its storage needs.
"I was given the task of trying to do a server consolidation, and we have
these large sites that have pretty large user populations on site and maybe
30 servers," said Randy Barnes, manager of distributed
computing at Parsons. "So I figured, why don't we try to collapse that
into a storage device and application servers where data will live on the
[NAS] and applications will live on the application servers."
According to Barnes, sites where the solution has been installed have
seen dramatic improvements in file access performance. Barnes also
noted that the implementation of a NAS has allowed Parsons to
optimize its application servers for running their specific applications.
The advantages of a NAS over a SAN also include the capability to
remain OS-agnostic due to the fact that it runs its own embedded file
system, enabling the storage and retrieval of data from a variety of
client-side operating systems, Reinis noted.
"If you have a more heterogenous world, like most Fortune 1000
companies, a NAS may actually be a better solution [than a SAN]," said
Carl Howe, research director at Forrester Research, in Cambridge,
Mass.
Dell's PowerVault filers, which are based heavily on technology from
Network Appliance, will be available in June, with prices starting at
$26,500. Later this year Dell expects to complete its storage solution by
connecting the file servers from its NAS to the switch on its SAN. This,
according to Reinis, will allow users to realize the efficiency advantages
of a NAS and the fault-tolerance advantages of a SAN in one cohesive
solution.
Hewlett-Packard and IBM are also expected to bolster their storage
solutions this week.
HP will introduce enterprise storage solutions and services focused
around their recent e-services initiative. IBM will also enhance its SAN
offerings this week, adding the capability to integrate existing Serial
Systems Architecture-based disk storage systems into its SAN in an
effort to offer greater scalability.
Compaq, meanwhile, is set to introduce its own NAS solution in the
coming months, according to sources.
Dell Computer Corp., in Round Rock, Texas, can be reached at
www.dell.com.
Michael Lattig is an InfoWorld reporter. |
