Storage Industry News from WCT

How up to date is your disaster recovery plan?

At WCT our core focus is Data Storage and Protection of Data Storage with Backup and Replication.  

The most effective Disaster Recovery is planning and training. Planning in the form of procedures and policies must be put in place. Training of these policies and procedures must be known by all staff involved. Without an effective Disaster Recovery Plan, an organization may be at great risk of data loss and hardware damage.

This will ensure the organization is protected for future growth

Disaster recovery has 3 main components in the event of a disaster

Redundancy

The data must be sent of an offsite location.

Communication

Effective communication between the managers, partners and vendors must be accessible to convey expectations.

Ongoing operation

Business operation must continue without any offline time.

The types of Disaster Recovery depends on the RTO (recovery time objective) and RPO (recovery point objective).

Depending on these objectives DR will incur the following types:

Cold DR

 -          Most effective for small- medium businesses who can afford to be back online the following day.

 -          Usually holds a replicated server from backup tapes to an offsite location

 -          Most cost effective option

Warm DR

 -          Hardware held in an offsite data center facility

 -          Servers are replicated virtually and usually in real time

 -          Business up and running within hours

 -          Suitable for businesses within the SME space

Hot DR

 -          Real time replication

 -          Up and running within minutes

 -          Dedicated area in data center

 -          Allows office to move into data Centre in case of meltdown or natural disasters

WCT Puts the Pieces Together

Implementing a network storage strategy can be complex like putting a puzzle together.

WCT takes the guesswork out of putting together integrated storage solutions.

Our sole focus is storage and protection of that storage.

Our Engineering Consultants let you know what to expect from the completed project, including the anticipated benefits of the specific solution. The implementation plan includes solution configuration, storage management, network infrastructure (HBAs, switches, hubs, cables), and storage media (disk or tape).

We ensure that all solution components work together, are easy to use, meet industry standards, and provide interoperability within the scope of the solution. Each solution is tested and monitored to provide maximum performance.

We have storage arrays to accommodate 1TB to multiple PB’s.

One of our manufactures has the most dense array available in the market today that can load up to 240TB’s in a 4U form factor at prices that make sense and includes 3 years of support. 

With an understanding of your environment we can present a solution to meet your requirements and budget. 

We are experts in the following areas:

• Primary Storage
• Secondary Storage
• Backup
• Archive
• Disaster Recovery 

We achieve solutions using the following products:

• SAN
• NAS
• DAS

·         Backup Appliances with De-Duplication and Replication

• Tape Libraries 

Connectivity options include:

• 1Gb iSCSI
• 10 Gb iSCSI
• 8Gb Fibre Channel
• 6Gb SAS

Enterprise Drive options include:

·         200GB, 400GB SSD

• 300GB, 450GB, 600GB 15K RPM SAS
• 300GB, 600GB, 900GB 10K RPM SAS
• 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB 7200 RPM SAS

Software options support:

• Snapshot
• Replication
• Thin Provisioning
• Deduplication
• VMWare

Call today to schedule a complimentary consultation with one of our engineers.

Dot Hill Optimizes Performance and Reduces Costs for iSCSI Storage Networks With Latest Patent

Company's 86th Patent Describes Technology for Greater Efficiencies in Dot Hill AssuredSAN 3000 Series, and Midrange 4000 and 5000 Series Storage Systems

LONGMONT, Colo., Sept. 25, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dot Hill Systems Corp. (Nasdaq:HILL), a leading provider of SAN storage solutions, today announced the latest addition to its increasing patent portfolio -- an innovation that optimizes iSCSI storage area network (SAN) performance and reduces expansion costs.

Using the flow control mechanisms built into iSCSI SANs, the technology in Dot Hill's 86^th U.S. patent, numbered 8,244,939, supports increased capacity for maximized performance of storage controllers and networks. It achieves this by allowing storage controller ports to handle more read and write requests from the server. If one port is maxed out due to a full queue of read and write requests, the Dot Hill software innovation makes it possible to borrow queue depth from another less busy port, reducing the number of "retries" by hosts, and more efficiently relaying requests to the storage controller.

"iSCSI-based SANs continue to grow in popularity due to their affordability and ease-of-use," said Jim Kuenzel, senior vice president of engineering, Dot Hill Systems. "Administrators are looking for ways to make the absolute most of their iSCSI investments, maximizing performance while reducing costs and the need to make additional investments."

"This latest patent describes innovations that do exactly that," Kuenzel explains, "On today's iSCSI SANs, each controller port is programmed to accept a limited number of read and write requests, even though many times, even with multiple port storage arrays, the controller has the capability to handle more requests than a given host port normally is able to handle. This patented technology resolves the situation to maximize performance, reduce costs and increase efficiencies."

Dot Hill's newest patent describes technology that is integrated in the company's AssuredSAN™ 3000 and 3003 Series, the new AssuredSAN 4000 Series and the AssuredSAN Pro 5000 Series. The Dot Hill AssuredSAN storage portfolio offers up to 288 terabytes of capacity in a single system, great ease-of-use and up to 99.999 percent reliability.

AssuredSAN 5000 Pro Series: Seriously Smart, Real-Time Tiered Storage for the Midrange

The AssuredSAN Pro 5000 Series with RealStor™ software takes tiered storage to a new level — beyond competitors' automated batch migration, and into a new era of autonomic, real-time data tiering. With RealStor, businesses gain the advantage of very high performance SSDs, using them to their maximum benefit, while storing less frequently accessed data on slower, but much less expensive, hard disk drives. Designed for the midrange market, the AssuredSAN Pro 5000 Series is a high-performance, highly available, fully integrated storage solution that delivers consistently faster access to current data with built-in, real-time, autonomic tiered storage and virtualization.

Highly Reliable AssuredSAN 4000 Series Storage Solution Delivers Wicked Fast Performance

Sharing the same powerful architecture as Dot Hill's AssuredSAN Pro 5000 Series midrange system, the AssuredSAN 4000 Series provides superior streaming performance for bandwidth-intensive applications. The AssuredSAN 4000 Series sets a new Dot Hill performance standard -- delivering up to 5200 MB/s of sustained sequential read throughput and up to 3000 MB/s of sustained sequential write performance --  making it ideal for customers in the Media & Entertainment (M&E), Telecommunications, and High Performance Computing (HPC) markets.

AssuredSAN 3000 and 3003 Series Deliver High Performance for Small and Medium Business

The AssuredSAN 3000 and 3003 Series feature the latest storage networking technologies such as 8Gb Fibre Channel and 10Gb iSCSI which opens the door to Fibre Channel levels of SAN performance for small- to medium-sized businesses based on standard Ethernet networking technology. AssuredSAN 3000 and 3003 Series arrays are available with Dot Hill AssuredRemote™ data management software for remote replication, AssuredCopy™, Dot Hill's volume copy technology, and AssuredSnap™ snapshot capability for improved data availability and business continuity.

Statements contained in this press release regarding matters that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Because such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Such statements include those regarding: the availability and performance of any Dot Hill product or feature in any particular environment, including those based on the technology described in this press release; any competitive advantage that the technology or patents provide to Dot Hill; and any improvement of Dot Hill's financial results due to the patents or technology. The risks that contribute to the uncertain nature of the forward-looking statements include, among other things: unforeseen technological, intellectual property or engineering issues, and; the additional risks set forth in the Forms 10-K and 10-Q most recently filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by Dot Hill. Forward-looking statements speak only of circumstances as of the date they were made and Dot Hill undertakes no obligation to update such statements to reflect circumstances that exist after that date.

Source: Dot Hill Systems Corporation

News Provided by Acquire Media

Copyright 2012 Dot Hill Systems Corp.

Dot Hill AssuredSAN Storage Systems Now Verified on Veeam Backup & Replication

Allows Organizations to Seamlessly Integrate Dot Hill AssuredSAN 3000 Series Arrays in VMware Environments

LONGMONT, Colo., Oct. 9, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dot Hill Systems Corp. (Nasdaq:HILL), a leading provider of SAN storage solutions, today announced that its AssuredSAN™ 3000 Series storage arrays have been verified on Veeam Backup & Replication™ v6.x. By passing Veeam's extensive hardware testing, Dot Hill's reliable and highly available AssuredSAN 3000 Series arrays are now available for dependable deployment with Veeam.

Veeam Backup & Replication provides fast, flexible and reliable recovery of virtualized applications and data for both VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V environments.

"Because Veeam Backup & Replication is one of the most commonly implemented backup and data protection solution for virtual infrastructures, it's an important part of many virtualization installations," said Jim Jonez, senior director of marketing, Dot Hill. "The verification of Dot Hill technology with Veeam means that virtualization users can count on the scalable AssuredSAN 3000 Series systems with 99.999 percent reliability for storage and backup of their business-critical data."

"We are pleased to have Dot Hill as a new Technology Alliance Partner verified on Veeam Backup & Replication," said Rick Hoffman,Vice President of Worldwide Alliances and Channels at Veeam. "The Dot Hill AssuredSAN 3000 Series and Veeam Backup & Replication provide a powerful hardware/software combination that VMware and Microsoft customers can depend on to reliably manage their data."

Designed to assist IT-constrained, midsize organizations facing the demands of data storage and data protection requirements, Dot Hill's AssuredSAN storage solutions support businesses in meeting their IT needs by delivering breakthrough storage performance, efficiency, flexibility and scale.

The Dot Hill AssuredSAN 3000 Series is certified with vSphere, vSphere 5 Site Recovery Manager, and vStorage with full support for VAAI primitives.

Dot Hill AssuredSAN 3000 Series arrays offer support for 8Gb Fibre Channel storage area networks (SANs), 10Gb iSCSI, as well as other 'state of the art' interface options. In addition, Dot Hill continues to add midrange capability and value to its 3000 Series with options such as AssuredRemote™ data management software for remote replication. Advanced data management such as AssuredCopy™, Dot Hill's volume copy technology, enabling the creation of independent data volume copies for additional data protection, and Dot Hill's AssuredSnap™ snapshot capability for improved data availability and business continuity, allow companies to reduce the burden of meeting modern data retention policies. The AssuredSAN 3000 systems can scale to a total of 288 terabytes of storage with inexpensive JBOD expansion units.

The AssuredSAN 3000 Series features a number of eco-friendly enhancements such as drive spin-down capability and 595-watt 80 PLUS-rated (greater than 80 percent energy efficiency) power supplies for reduced operating costs. Additionally, the AssuredSAN 3000 Series also features Dot Hill's patented EcoStor™ "green" battery-free alternative for cache memory, which leverages a combination of super capacitors and flash memory that outlasts traditional batteries nearly fivefold. Business benefits include lower maintenance and disposal costs and reduced server and application down time due to scheduled battery replacement and maintenance.

Statements contained in this press release regarding matters that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Because such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ from those expressed or implied by the statements. For a discussion of risks and uncertainties that Dot Hill may face, please consult the Forms 10-K and 10-Q most recently filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by Dot Hill. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they were made and Dot Hill undertakes no obligation to update such statements to reflect changes in circumstances.

Source: Dot Hill Systems Corporation

News Provided by Acquire Media

Copyright 2012 Dot Hill Systems Corp.

Does a more affordable Enterprise Storage & Backup solution exist?

It’s easy to just keep adding disk to existing tier one storage to accommodate your needs however, these disks in many applications are very expensive and the annual support costs are just staggering.

Storage arrays do exist from a variety of major manufacturers at prices that just make sense.

Whether your storage demands are 1TB or 1PB, there are several options to consider.

One SAN offering example includes 36TB’s with no single point of failure with three years of support for under $18,000. For larger demands, we can show you the most densely populated storage array in the industry that will accommodate 180TB’s in just 4U’s of rack space at price points under $300 per TB.

How to determine the right product to meet your requirements is to schedule a discussion with one of our engineers to understand your environment and objectives. We can then provide you with a solution to meet your needs specific to your requirements and budget.

WCT’s sole focus is storage and protection of storage.

Find out why companies such as Microsoft, Qlogic, Sybase, NASA and Intel just to name a few, have purchased hundreds of storage products from WCT for their storage, backup, archive and testing environments.

Available Drive Options

• SATA & SAS 7200rpm
• SAS 15Krpm
• SAS 10Krpm
• Solid State Drives (SSD)

Connectivity Options

• 1Gb iSCSI
• 10Gb iSCS
• 8Gb Fibre Channel
• Hybrid – iSCSI & Fibre Channel
• 6Gb SAS

Software Options

• Snapshot
• Replication
• MAID (Massive Array of Idle Discs)
• Thin Provisioning

Call now to schedule a complimentary consultation with one of our storage experts!

January, 2012

Hard Drive Prices Rise Due To Thai Floods

Some vendors also trim warranties; IDC expects shortages to persist into 2013.

Natural disasters around the world affect all parts of American business, and, of late the hard disk drive industry has been impacted. Flooding in Thailand, where one-third of the world's hard drives are produced, has had a domino effect on shipments of hard disk drives.

Almost all major storage vendors have raised the prices on their arrays and disk drives, citing the devastating floods as the source of their hard drive supply woes.

Seagate revised its financial outlook in November, saying: "The company continues to believe that, due to the industry impacts caused by the extensive flooding in Thailand, hard disk drive supply will be significantly constrained for several quarters. For the December 2011 quarter, the company believes the industry will ship between 110-120 million units."

Seagate said that the manufacture and shipment of hard drives will improve slowly through 2012. IDC expects that supply shortages will affect customers into 2013.

NetApp followed the EMC announcement with a note on its website of a similar tenor: "Effective February 6, 2012, we will be temporarily increasing HDD list prices 5-15% over current pricing."

Hitachi Data Systems followed in note: "As with other companies in our industry, HDS has witnessed a global cost increase from hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturers due to the devastating floods in Thailand. To date, Hitachi has absorbed these price increases; however, on February 1, 2012, we will have to raise the list prices of the HDDs we sell by 5-15% to offset the cost increases being passed to us from our suppliers. We expect the increases to be temporary until the industry returns to a more stable production level."

A Dell spokesperson said, "Over the past two months, Dell has made strategic purchases of inventory and pulled in supply. Any increased pricing for specific drives would be aligned with specific cost increases."

Finally, an HP spokesman issued the following statement: "Given the uncertainty associated with the situation, HP expects there to be continued headwinds related to the flooding in Thailand, affecting hard disk drive supply and pricing by our suppliers, which may have a temporary impact on HP's pricing of HDDs. HP is in constant communication with our employees, clients, and suppliers to optimize business continuity and actively manage this dynamic situation."

IBM has not commented on increased drive costs.

Every vendor acknowledges that the price hikes will be temporary.

Seagate and Western Digital responded to the flooding, not by increasing the cost of their own hard drives, but by shortening the warranty period that protects the drives. Seagate is changing its warranty policy from five years to either three, two, or one years, depending on the drive type.

Western Digital is dropping its warranty period for its Blue drives to two years, while maintaining the same five-year warranty for its Black drives.

While it is hard to view an upside of all this turmoil, there is one. Solid state drive (SSD) sales are expected to increase in spite of the constrained supply chain caused by last year's Japan tsunami. A continued uptick in SSD sales can hardly compensate for the shortage of HDDs, but it may boost their acceptance into enterprise-size businesses.

IDC predicts that storage manufacturers such as IBM and NetApp will look to the SSD vendors to backfill hard drive supply gaps. SSD manufacturers LSI, Marvell Technology Group, Micron Technology, and SanDisk have all issued statements on their views of increased business.

Courtesy of: Information Week