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 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: server virtualization, iSCSI, vmware, server consolidation, IP SAN, citrix, Microsoft Hyper-V, storage consolidation, stonefusion, scvm, storage virtualization, quick sync, pass-thru copy, UPS | 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
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, ip storage, IP SAN, news, StoneFly, storage area network, voyager, high availability, stonefusion | 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
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
July 29, 2009
Did you know, that in a virtual server environment, the physical servers can be used as disaster recovery servers for noncritical apps? Instead of sitting idle and collecting dust, they can be used for apps not required during a disaster.
Organizations looking to reduce recovery time, remote site costs, and improve ease of implementation, find that server virtualization combined with business continuity solutions, such as replication, is a more cost-effective disaster recovery strategy. Research from Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) finds that 26% of organizations are replicating virtual machine images to a remote disaster recovery site, and 39% plan to do so in the future. Check out this article from SearchStorage that describes the benefits of virtual machines for DR.
Here is a quote from Mark Bowker from ESG about virtualization for DR:
“Some people are deploying a single VM on a host for critical and resource-intense apps like Exchange to reap the DR benefits but ensure sufficient resources; the data protection advantages by far outweigh the slight virtualization overhead.”
Want to learn more on using virtual servers and IP SANs for disaster recovery? Check out these resources:
Leave a Comment » | IP SAN, StoneFly, Storage, backup, iSCSI, virtual servers | Tagged: business continuity, citrix, disaster recovery, DR plan, server virtualization, storage consolidation, virtual server, virtual server management, virtual servers, vmware, Xen | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
July 1, 2009
If you want to learn about using iSCSI/IP SANs for virtual servers, disaster recovery, storage consolidation and more, join us for our weekly webinar every Wednesday at 10AM PST. These webinars last only 60 minutes, but cover everything from basic SAN setup to advanced storage management. Sign up for the next upcoming session.
Comments Off | Events, IP SAN, StoneFly, Storage, Tutorial, iSCSI, virtual servers | Tagged: disaster recovery, IP SAN, iSCSI, storage consolidation, webinar | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
June 11, 2009
As pioneers of the iSCSI protocol, we understand how it can benefit organizations big and small. Many SMBs have favor iSCSI because it allows them to simplify management and decrease cost . In contrast, Global 2000 companies have historically favored Fibre Channel >iSCSI.
A recent survey by TheInfoPro (TIP) shows that not much has changed in the deployment of iSCSI by Global 2000 companies (about 16% of Global 2000 using iSCSI), but the responses reveal a new trend emerging. Approximately 40% of the organizations said increased spending is planned for using iSCSI to save money on replication and for use within remote-office storage environments.
The survey asked one of our customers about iSCSI, here is what they said:
“More and more users are finding that iSCSI is much easier to implement compared to alternatives in the marketplace,” says David Stevens, a storage manager at Carnegie Mellon University. “iSCSI was faster for us to implement and required fewer people than competitive options, which resulted in reduced storage costs. I expect to see more and more organizations implementing iSCSI in the data center.”
Additional Info:
Leave a Comment » | IP SAN, StoneFly, Storage, iSCSI, virtual servers | Tagged: applications, customer, fibre channel, IP SAN, ip storage, iSCSI, iscsi san, survey | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
