December 17, 2009
Here’s what storage expert Jim Addlesberger had to say about the Voyager IP SAN in his recent blog post:
In direct competition with Equallogic the Voyager IP SANs are designed to offer active/active controllers, improved redundancy, high-availability and fast performance – at a lower price point. Using high-performance storage interconnects, the Voyager product family is designed for enterprise environments looking for a versatile SAN for primary and secondary storage applications.
With support for SAS, SATA, and SSD drives for online transaction processing, database, email, disk based archives, disk to disk backup, virtual servers and other core applications. The cornerstone of the Voyager is their storage virtualization engine, which offers quad-core processing power, dedicated iSCSI Cache, and our StoneFusion storage management operating system.
Don’t believe us, read what Reuters had to say in March of 2009. And at 10Gb speeds the Voyager is a screamer.
Speaking of 10GB you should let us tell you about H3C a division of 3COM. Combining the Voyager and H3C’s 10GB switches gives you a very economical, performing and secure solution.
The Voyager not only supports 10GB but also Solid State drives as well.
Allow us to arrange an informative conference call to tell you more.
NavigateStorage 978-318-9000
For more information about the Voyager, sign up for our Wednesday webinar.
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10GbE, IP SAN, StoneFly, iSCSI, virtual servers | Tagged: IP SAN, ip storage, iSCSI, iscsi san, solid state disk, SSD, storage solutions, voyager | 
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Posted by tymikamorrison
November 23, 2009
We just introduced RAIDML™, a new multi-level (ML) approach that provides the highest levels of data protection for mission-critical files and applications. RAIDML is now an integrated part of StoneFly’s Voyager HA IP SAN, which offers the ability to create No Single Point of Failure (NSPOF) volumes as well as RAID 5 or 6 protected volumes. Both NSPOF and traditional RAID sets with comprehensive auto fail-over and fail-back capabilities are protected. The creation of RAIDML saves costs and reduces the need for doubling drives to meet NSPOF requirements. Use our RAID calculator to help choose the RAID level that’s right for you. To read more about our new RAIDML features, check out the news release.
Leave a Comment » | 10GbE, IP SAN, News and Press Releases, StoneFly, Storage, iSCSI | Tagged: data protection, hardware raid, IP SAN, iscsi san, NSPOF, RAID, RAID 5, RAID 6, raid calculator, RAID storage, RAIDML, voyager | Permalink
Posted by tymikamorrison
November 11, 2009
We just unveiled StoneFusion 6.3, a virtualization-focused upgrade to our intelligent network storage platform. The StoneFusion OS is integrated into all StoneFly IP SANs, and offers block-level provisioning and centralized storage management, control and monitoring of logical storage volumes.
Here are some of the key updates:
- Compatibility with StoneFly’s new Storage Concentrator Virtual Machine (SCVM™), which provides comprehensive disaster recovery capabilities and enhanced support for leading virtual machine guest operating systems (OS)
- Improved system management with Quick Sync™ and Pass-thru Copy features
- Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) support for all IP SANs
Interested in a demo of StoneFly’s IP SANs utilizing the StoneFusion OS? Sign up for our Wednesday webinar. For more information on the update, check out the news release.
Leave a Comment » | 10GbE, IP SAN, News and Press Releases, StoneFly, Storage, iSCSI, virtual servers | Tagged: citrix, IP SAN, iSCSI, Microsoft Hyper-V, pass-thru copy, quick sync, scvm, server consolidation, server virtualization, stonefusion, storage consolidation, storage virtualization, UPS, vmware | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
October 29, 2009
Are you using Windows Server 2008’s iSCSI initiator? Do you know what connection policy you have?
If you said “no” to the last question, you may need to check out this TechRepublic article which explains the multiple connected sessions (MCS) policies.
Here are the 5 policies defined:
- Round robin (default): This policy attempts to evenly distribute storage traffic to all available processing paths.
- Fail over only: This policy designates one active (primary) path to the storage resource; the remaining paths are assigned to a standby role. If the remaining paths are engaged for active storage, they will attempt to come online with a round robin policy until one is available.
- Round robin with subset: This policy runs round robin on active paths and has standby paths that are available via round-robin if the active paths fail.
- Least queue depth: This policy attempts to distribute loads based on I/O requests and the associated queue length. The round robin policy simply processes each request equally, with no regard to the load associated with the I/O task on the path.
- Weighted paths: This policy designates a path to have a low number (priority) to a path
Share your experience with MCS policies, drop a line.
Leave a Comment » | IP SAN, StoneFly, iSCSI, virtual servers | Tagged: failover, iSCSI, iscsi initiator, iscsi processing, iscsi san, multiple connected sessions, networking iSCSI, round robin, windows iscsi initiator, windows server 2008 | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
October 12, 2009
What does “No Single Point of Failure” (NSPOF) really mean? If you read it at face value, you may conclude that it is the highest level of data protection. There are several ways to achieve NSPOF on your volumes: mirroring ( RAID 1); mirroring and striping (RAID 10 or 0+1); complete subsystem mirroring (RAID51 or RAID61); or host based applications that manage mirroring. With these conventional NSPOF methods, you are only doubling the disk count, and essentially doubling the entire subsystems cost.
With StoneFly’s new RAIDML configuration, you can create NSPOF volumes and purely RAID5 or 6 protected volumes, and do it in a single storage unit or across multiple storage units.
Here is a highlight of the benefits:
- Flexible expansion at RAID and iSCSI volume levels
- Targeted NSPOF iSCSI volume(s) coexist with standard RAID5 and 6 iSCSI volumes
- Auto fail-over and fall-back protection
- No 100% drive count penalty
- Advanced StoneFusion volume management
To learn more, read the RAIDML tech brief.
Interested in a technology demo? Contact our sales team.
Use our new RAID calculator to help choose the RAID level that’s right for you.
Leave a Comment » | IP SAN, StoneFly, Storage, backup, iSCSI | Tagged: disk failure, failover protection, file storage, hardware failure, iscsi RAID, mirroring, NSPOF, RAID, RAID 5, RAID 6, raid calculator, RAID storage, RAIDML, storage protection, storage solutions | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
September 28, 2009
StoneFly’s Voyager IP SAN appliance is a featured product in this month’s Processor. Read the full article. If you receive a hard copy of Processor, look for the article on page 20 (vol.31 issue 24).
To learn more about the Voyager, visit the product page.
Leave a Comment » | 10GbE, IP SAN, News and Press Releases, StoneFly, Storage, datacenter, iSCSI, virtual servers | Tagged: datacenter, high availability, IP SAN, ip storage, news, StoneFly, stonefusion, storage area network, voyager | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
September 3, 2009
A follow-up to last month’s article about virtualization for small businesses, here is the latest virtualization platform from VMware, called VMware Go™ which is ideal for small and midsize businesses. The web-based service simplifies the virtualization process by automating the VMware ESXi hypervisor installation and setup, without needing expert IT resources.
Currently in beta-version, VMware plans to release the free VMware Go in 2010. Sign up to receive the beta-version.
Leave a Comment » | IP SAN, StoneFly, Storage, datacenter, iSCSI, virtual servers | Tagged: hypervisor, smb, smb storage, virtual infrastructure, virtual server, virtualization, virtualization management, vmware, VMware ESX, VMware Go, vmworld | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
September 2, 2009
I know you’ve been hearing about SSD support for a while now, but we’ve officially announced that our IP SAN appliances with SSD improves SAN IO by 400%, while lowering energy consumption and cooling requirements by 80%. With no moving parts, solid-state technology is fast and reliable, allowing organizations to offload data intensive processes to energy-saving SSD.
Leave a Comment » | 10GbE, IP SAN, News and Press Releases, StoneFly, iSCSI | Tagged: 10 gig ethernet, 10GbE, ethernet, ethernet switch, intel, IP SAN, solid state disk, SSD, voyager | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
August 28, 2009
StoneFly has been gaining traction with 10GbE IP SAN appliances. Our customers are seeing better performance, speed, and availability from it. In some applications they achieve up to 1,000 megabytes per second (MBPS) and over 100,000 inputs/outputs per second (IOPS). With our patented virtual pipeline architecture, our systems can keep latency under 6 usec, even heavily loaded, with over 18 Gb/sec bandwidth (bi-directional).
Using 10G? We are interested to hear your experience with it, and what types of applications you use it for. Drop a line.
Leave a Comment » | 10GbE, IP SAN, StoneFly, Storage, datacenter, iSCSI, virtual servers | Tagged: 10 gig ethernet, 10 gigabit, 10GbE, bandwidth, ethernet, IP SAN, iscsi san, latency, storage performance, virtualization | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
August 7, 2009
As a small company, the statement “do more with less” is what keeps IT admins on their toes, looking for better ways to save every penny. With upper management reluctant to revamp server hardware, the reliability of your cheap, outdated machines comes into question. Server virtualization, which may seem like an expensive technology that only large enterprise use, may actually be the easiest and cheapest solution.
A recent study by The Register shows that virtualization expertise is still low, especially at the small business level.
However, the benefits of virtualization cannot be ignored, and may actually be the easiest and cheapest solution available for reliable IT operation. As this PC Week article reveals, any task relegated to an old computer would be better served by a virtual machine on a modern computer.
Here are some highlights from the article:
- While VMware sells its enterprise solutions, its free Server product is adequate for many small business apps.
- Use the free vCenter Converter to convert your existing computer to a virtual machine.
- For users < 10, you can use Windows XP or Vista for many server tasks.
- For users > 10, use Windows Server 2008 for around $700.
- A smart additional step would be to use a redundant external disk solution. (NOTE: Check out DNFexpress.com for external storage)
So why is virtualization the easier, cheaper solution? Well you’ve created redundancy, high availability and simplified management without ripping and replacing your existing machines–just like the enterprise IT pros. Who’s the small business now?
Leave a Comment » | DNF Express, IP SAN, StoneFly, Storage, iSCSI, virtual servers | Tagged: DNF Express, server virtualization, smb, smb storage, virtual infrastructure, virtual server, virtual server tools, virtualization, windows, windows server 2008 | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
