Apple dips its toe in the storage software market
Apple dips its toe in the storage software market
Apple has signalled its intention to make waves in the enterprise storage market, with the release of SAN file system software for the Mac OS X.
Xsan, which is expected to be made available sometime in Q3 of this year, allows up to 64 Mac OS X-based systems to read and write to shared storage simultaneously.
It allows a Mac server to manage software in a storage network pool of up to 16TB on a Fibre Channel network.
According to a company spokesperson, Xsan storage networking eliminates the bottlenecks of Ethernet-based network file servers.
Using Fibre Channel multipathing, in which two Fibre Channel cables connect a computer to the SAN, an Xsan client can theoretically achieve throughput of up to 400MBps. This functionality is being promoted as ideal for multiple editors working on a video project or a computer cluster that needs fast access to data.
Further down the track, Apple is planning to offer Xsan connectivity with Unix, Linux and Windows, indication that it is serious about establishing its presence in the enterprise storage market.
Related Article: