Compaq leads the pack in storage area network market

Compaq Computer Corporation has further increased its already considerable lead in the open data storage area network (SAN) market with the introduction of a comprehensive set of storage solutions for the enterprise.

Julian Simpkins, Storage Products Division Business Unit Manager said Compaq `s new storage solutions increase data availability, reduce operational costs and speed application development and deployment time - key business issues customers face daily.

"Based on the Compaq Enterprise Network Storage Architecture (ENSA) this new technology will provide customers with the highest connectivity and scalability on the market.

"In this fast-paced e-business world, organisations are turning to networked storage to manage the vast amount of business and customer data generated by the Internet," Simpkins said.

"This SAN announcement will help customers solve their storage-related information technology challenges with solutions that offer unbounded performance, capacity, and protection for applications and data, providing a flexible, scalable, continuous NonStop "a eBe-business environment."

Compaq SAN solutions include:

• Software that instantly backs up and restores data at any point in time for customers who can`t tolerate any disruption to their computing environment

• The industry`s first SAN solutions that provide world-wide data replication capabilities

• Pro-active "phone home" notification of service issues for faster response and resolution

• Storage solutions configured for industry-leading applications

• A complete portfolio of enterprise backup solutions for open systems

• Best-in-class Ultra3 storage devices

"With this announcement, Compaq continues to deliver on its ENSA promise. Compaq now offers both remote mirroring and point-in-time storage software - two key enterprise-class storage software applications that many organisations find to be increasingly essential," said industry analyst David Hill of Aberdeen Group.

"The StorageWorks Enterprise Volume Manager is an innovative solution that helps enterprises solve their shrinking backup windows through the use of snapshots. Moreover, enterprises now have greater storage infrastructure design flexibility through Compaq`s ATM technology support that allows longer distances for both remote mirroring and SANs."

Compaq SANs Lead the Industry The StorageWorks Enterprise Volume Manager software provides point-in-time copies of data for the most demanding business critical applications. For example, Enterprise Volume Manager virtually eliminates backup windows by allowing non-disruptive backup/recovery operations.

"These point-in-time copies can also be used for many additional applications such as application testing, data mining, and application replication. With it easy to use Web interface and production scheduling capabilities, data can be migrated across any server attached to the SAN," Simpkins said.

For use with industry-standard components, the StorageWorks Enterprise Volume Manager is an easy-to-use, cost-effective solution that guarantees business continuance.

"Compaq`s StorageWorks Enterprise Volume Manager is an efficient, non-disruptive method for handling data volume movement within a SAN (Storage Area Network)," said Dustin Ingalls, director of Application Support at Microsoft. "This product, which allows volumes to mount on a second server without rebooting, is valuable for data backup, testing, or other tasks in parallel with primary applications."

Customers who need to maintain the highest levels of business continuance can now protect their data over greater distances in a SAN-based environment. Leveraging StorageWorks Data Replication Manager, breakthrough software delivered earlier in the year, Compaq`s latest SAN solutions allow automatic data replication over wide area networks (WANs) using standard asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) technology.

"Duplicate data centres located hundreds or thousands of miles apart can now be interconnected into a single "virtual SAN" to create highly scalable, disaster tolerant business solutions. This technology effectively breaks all of today`s SAN distance limitations and allows the implementation of global SAN`s," said Simpkins . In addition, for Windows NT customers, the high-availability Compaq ProLiant Cluster HA/F500 solution is now available in a disaster-tolerant configuration comprised of ProLiant high-end or high-density servers, Microsoft Cluster Server software, the StorageWorks Data Replication Manager, and StorageWorks RAID Array 8000 and Enterprise Storage Array 12000 systems.

Compaq also enhanced its SAN offerings with comprehensive support for all major open-systems platforms and highly scalable SAN fabrics with new Fibre Channel switches. Compaq can now support more than 40 storage devices and servers in heterogeneous SAN environments with support for hundreds of devices to come in the future.

Compaq is also now offering Proactive Services Solutions and Software for SAN environments. With Proactive Services, Compaq will respond automatically to actual or predicted device failures and in most cases, resolve the problem before there is any impact to business operations. Available for Windows NT-based StorageWorks RAID Arrays, the service predicts failure of essential storage system components and automatically alerts a Compaq Customer Support Centre to dispatch a service representative, if required, ensuring fast problem resolution, reduced downtime, and high system availability to customers

The service is already available for OpenVMS and Tru64 UNIX operating systems on AlphaServers.

Applications-Based Storage Solutions New integrated solutions are available to help customers tailor storage to meet their application requirements.

An entry-level SAN, the High Availability Storage Solution for ProLiant Servers, is ideal for customers who want to deploy storage for applications such as mail and messaging.

It is a tested and fully integrated configuration and is comprised of Fibre Channel-based storage, high availability software, data replication software, installation, data migration, and service.

The Microsoft Exchange Backup/Restore Solution provides quick, automated backup and recovery of Microsoft Exchange environments. Using the StorageWorks Virtual Replicator and customisable scripts, this solution shuts the system down briefly, takes a "snapshot" of data for backup, and resumes operation within minutes. It simplifies storage management for this mission-critical application. Prices for these solutions vary depending on the configuration.

Complete Portfolio of Enterprise Backup Solutions "With this announcement Compaq rounded out its portfolio of backup solutions for the enterprise with new versions of its SAN-based Enterprise Backup Solution (EBS) designed for the data centre, department, and workgroup. EBS, a unique combination of industry-standard hardware from Compaq and software from partners, allows customers to manage concurrent backups/restores on multiple servers and tape libraries from a central location with Fibre Channel performance," Simpkins said.

"The new EBS for the Data Centre solution enables customers to consolidate data protection across open, multi-vendor platforms for high performance, easy manageability, and low operating costs. The solution also enables primary storage and backup to reside on a common SAN architecture for a fully integrated solution.

"Customers can choose between Legato NetWorker or VERITAS NetBackup storage management software. EBS for the Data Centre."

Compaq now offers its previously announced EBS for Departments in a 20-server configuration and EBS for Workgroups (EBS Backpaq) in a 5-server configuration. These Windows NT or NetWare-based backup solutions are integrated with VERITAS Backup Exec software. All EBS solutions are available immediately.

Ultra3 Storage Devices Based on industry leading technology, new Ultra3 disk drives designed for Compaq ProLiant and AlphaServer systems offer twice the speed of previous versions with data transfers up to160 MB/second for the ultimate in application performance.

Customers can mix and match Ultra2 and Ultra3 drives in the same storage enclosure or server, making the transition to Ultra3 technology easily without having to replace their entire server and storage infrastructure for maximum investment protection.

The Compaq Enterprise Network Storage Architecture The Compaq enterprise storage vision is simple and clear-Compaq sees a world where storage is a utility-essentially a service on the network, like electricity or water. This storage utility-based on Compaq`s ENSA -offers unbounded performance and capacity to every application environment through the network. The current announcements are more steps along the path to help organisations solve their storage-related IT challenges. In addition, Compaq offers a full range of industry-leading, open enterprise storage solutions for the entire enterprise.