The storage market is extremely volatile. Enterprises are faced with constant demands for more, faster, cheaper storage as the amount of data in various different forms increases at breakneck speed.
At the same time, most analysts estimate that enterprise storage systems are only between 40% and 60% utilised. The problem is that available storage is often in another department or attached to another network and the work needed to integrate the additional storage for a specific application is incredibly complex.
"The answer is virtualisation," says Andre Wollheim, product manager at Tarsus Technologies on announcing that Tarsus has started distributing HP`s EVA Lite (Enterprise Virtual Array) virtualisation solutions. "Much has been made of storage virtualisation as the solution to enterprise storage problems over recent years, but few people understand what it is and where or how to apply it."
According to one definition: "Storage virtualisation is the transparent abstraction of storage at the block level. It separates out logical data access from physical per-disk data access."
"In a real-world environment, this means virtualisation hides the different systems, networks and technologies involved and presents diverse storage resources as if they are a single drive dedicated to the application or user," Wollheim adds.
Virtualisation can occur at any level of the storage area network (SAN), including the server, fabric and storage system level. From the user`s point of view, virtualisation does not exist as the administration staff takes care of all the hassles, presenting one integrated view to the user.
Even administrators get a helping hand. All vendors delivering virtualisation solutions also provide the management software to control the storage systems and make sure users can simply do their work.
The HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array 3000 (EVA3000) is an end-to-end virtual RAID Fibre Channel (FC) solution. EVA3000 uses virtualisation at the individual storage system level to create large pools of storage behind the controllers. With Command View EVA 2.1 manager, which resides on the storage management appliance, administrators can configure and manage up to sixteen (16) EVAs on Windows NT/2000, HP-UX, Sun Solaris, Tru64 Unix, OpenVMS, IBM AIX, Linux or NetWare.
Virtualisation permits companies to make full use of their storage resources, reducing the amount of wasted storage and postponing the need to purchase new storage as often. This translates to real cost savings as postponing a purchase means that when storage is eventually bought, it has followed the technological evolutionary curve and customers get more, faster products for the same price - a win-win situation.
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Tarsus Technologies, the value-add distribution arm of MB Technologies, is rated by suppliers and channel partners as SA`s leading hardware distributor for its stability, service ethos, product knowledge, excellent support, competitive pricing strategies and channel focus.
Distributing a wide range of products from the world`s leading manufacturers, including Acer, APC, HP, IBM, OKI, Samsung and Tally, and supplementing this range with its own brand - the Tarsus PC - Tarsus focuses strongly on long-lasting partnerships with its suppliers and resellers. In line with this philosophy, Tarsus provides a comprehensive range of services to its resellers that enables them to add value to their own offering, and assists them in growing their business.
It is this service offering that has afforded Tarsus a number of channel accolades. The latest include: Channel Executive Awards - 2002; Best Distributor Overall - 2002; Compaq`s "BDG Distributor of the Year" award - 2001 and CRN Outlook Awards - 2002.
More information about Tarsus is available at http://www.tarsus.co.za.
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