Smart Storage Technologies (SmartStor) and Oracle SA have launched a major new initiative to offer cost effective, high performance and high-availability data storage solutions to Oracle users in South Africa.
The local initiative is based on a well-established international agreement between Oracle Corporation and XIOtech (a Seagate company). XIOtech is uniquely positioned as a certified Oracle Solutions Partner in the data storage hardware arena while SmartStor, a specialist data storage solutions company in the JSE-listed MB Technologies group, is the sole representative of XIOtech in South Africa.
Tony Life, a SmartStor executive director, says the South African project is focussed on SmartStor's ability to design and implement true storage virtualisation technology based on XIOtech's Magnitude hardware platform.
"While many companies claim to offer storage virtualisation, only the Magnitude actually delivers on the power and exciting benefits of this technology," he says.
"The XIOtech Magnitude, an architectured storage area network solution, conforms totally with Oracle's recommendation to customers to implement SAME (stripe and mirror everything) storage methodology for Oracle-based business applications," says Life.
"Until Oracle and XIOtech teamed up, SAME could not be addressed within acceptable performance and cost parameters. Even now it remains beyond the capability of almost all other storage vendors," says Life.
"The integration of Oracle applications into XIOtech's Magnitude storage platform offers many benefits, the most significant of which is a quantum increase in system performance at lower cost.
"Not only does the Magnitude use fewer disks to run Oracle applications, but it also increases striping capacity from 16 to 64 disks to guarantee a phenomenal level of performance and unrivalled cost-saving benefits," he says.
Deon Roos, Oracle product manager, Server Technologies, says SAME implementations using XIOtech's storage virtualisation technology have been widely acclaimed at a growing number of Oracle sites throughout the United States and Europe.
"With SmartStor having qualified for the Oracle Partner Programme in South Africa, we look forward to working with their highly skilled people to introduce our local customers to the benefits of SAME storage based on XIOtech platforms," he says.
XIOtech is recognised internationally by independent industry analysts as the fastest growing external disk storage systems supplier in the world. IDC has forecast that XIOtech will continue to consolidate this leadership position.
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