iSCSI storage with a twist
iSCSI storage with a twist
DataCore Software, an independent software vendor specialising in storage control, management and consolidation, has introduced what it describes as a novel approach to iSCSI storage.
Inspired by what it deems to be a market "characterised by hardwired appliances with little configurability, poor performance and relatively high cost," DataCore is exploiting the power and flexibility of inexpensive PCs as its platform for IP storage subsystems - or more appropriately, iSCSI 'disk servers.'
DataCore has a history of demonstrating that low-cost PC servers equipped with the company's software provide the lowest cost and highest performance hardware on which to roll out high-value storage services.
In iSCSI configurations, DataCore's SANmelody disk servers take similar advantage of very fast CPUs, cache memory and standard Ethernet cards to economically meet applications' I/O needs using inexpensive EIDE and Serial ATA drives. As importantly, according to the company, is the fact that SANmelody satisfies such requirements and accelerates overall performance without resorting to pricier TCP offload engines (TOE), iSCSI host bus adapters (HBAs) or exotic hardware. Customers and DataCore business partners have the flexibility to choose off-the-shelf server components from Dell, Gateway, HP, IBM and other AMD or Intel OEMs.
The iSCSI market is expected to boom to over $1 billion by the end of 2004, and almost $5 billion in 2007, fuelled by free iSCSI support in Windows and Linux, as well as the increasing prevalence of Gigabit IP LANs.
Bharat Kumar, managing director for worldwide marketing at DataCore, pointed out: "SANmelody redefines the cost of creating an entry-level IP SAN to access shared iSCSI storage. We are driving a far-reaching program that shrink-wraps everything you need to convert off-the-shelf PCs into single-purpose iSCSI disk servers. In doing so, we lift all the constraints that plague specialised arrays, at the same time surpassing them on price/performance and flexibility."
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