Features - Storage Innovations:

ONSTOR TRANSFORMS FILE SERVICES MARKET WITH NEW SOLUTION

ONStor Inc, an innovator of SAN-based file services solutions, announced availability of the ONStor SF4400 Series SAN filer, the industry's first file services solution designed specifically to consolidate enterprise-wide file storage on heterogeneous storage area networks (SANs). The ONStor SF4400 SAN filer delivers the industry's only single hardware and software platform designed to manage enterprise-wide files services on open SAN storage.

The ONStor SAN filer system combines the simplicity of NAS with the performance and scalability of a SAN. This groundbreaking approach to delivering SAN-based file services consolidates storage, centralizes and simplifies file management, while ensuring continuous data availability and data protection with the industry's most scalable file storage architecture.

Based on a patent-pending architecture, the ONStor SF4400 SAN filer is purpose-built to enable data centers to consolidate islands of NAS storage into a single heterogeneous SAN with one common management interface. With capacity scalable to 40 petabytes, performance scalable to 140,000 IOPS, multiple levels of redundancy, and data protection features such as SAN-based disk-to-disk data replication, the ONStor SF4400 SAN filer architecture now brings enterprise-class capabilities to the file services market.

"To support the growing data demands of our business, we look for solutions that allow us to maximize our current storage investment," said Helen Roberts, chief operating officer of Responsys. "ONStor's SAN filer system does just that by providing a file management system with enterprise-class capabilities and heterogeneous storage support. ONStor's SAN filers enable us to consolidate, manage and leverage our existing SAN resources to meet our changing business requirements."

ONStor Addresses Customer Pain Points With Cost-Effective Data Solutions

Data protection remains a pain point for IT managers and ONStor's SAN filer hardware and software provides real relief with solutions that simplify management, eliminate the backup window, and boost process reliability.

Employing SAN-based disk-to-disk data replication, SAN filers deliver continuous data backup and instantaneous data restore. ONStor's heterogeneous storage support provides the flexibility to deploy low-cost disk, such as SATA-based arrays, at a fraction of the cost of conventional arrays.

"I'm on the record stating that CIFS/NFS are really applications that belong in front of a SAN. I'm glad to see ONStor recognize what is by anyone's estimate, a massive market opportunity," said Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst of Enterprise Storage Group. "This approach is perfect -- it lets users gain all the enterprise file benefits while continuing to squeeze more value out of their SAN investment."

The ONStor SAN Filer Product Family

The ONStor SAN filer product family consists of the ONStor SF4400 Series SAN filer and the ONStor application software suite.

ONStor SF4400 Series SAN Filer

• Software Platform -- Designed specifically for SAN-based file serving, the ONStor EverONTM software platform includes native CIFS and NFS protocols, data snapshot capability and automated volume management. EverON also incorporates ONStor's STOR-FS file system, a 64-bit file system that maintains all data and device state information on SAN-based disk. This unique design permits any ONStor SAN filer to instantaneously assume the workload from any other SAN filer -- with no data migration or client disruption -- for load balancing, failover or system maintenance purposes.

  Directly addressing up to 40 petabytes of capacity, the EverON software platform delivers a highly available file services environment that can be scaled to accommodate changing capacity and performance requirements.

• Hardware Platform -- The SAN filer hardware platform incorporates a powerful 64-bit symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) pipelined architecture that enables a single ONStor SAN filer to do the work of several conventional NAS servers.

  The SAN filer's real time data protection capabilities are enhanced by dedicated processors that allow continuous disk-to-disk data replication and disk-to-tape backup to proceed with no performance impact to ongoing file transactions. By contrast, conventional NAS devices may experience up to 60 percent performance degradation during backup processes, limiting backup processes to specific time windows.

ONStor Application Suite

Four ONStor applications expand the ONStor SAN filer's performance, availability, and management:

• ONStor Data Mirror provides seamless data backup and instant data restore via asynchronous data replication among SAN-attached storage arrays.
• ONStor High Availability prevents any loss of data by adding automatic failover capability to the ONStor SAN filer environment.
• ONStor SAN Filer Manager reduces the complexity of file administration by consolidating the management of multiple SAN filers into a single framework.
• ONStor Load Balance permits the quick redistribution of users and file systems among multiple redundant filers, eliminating data loss or the need to migrate data.

"File-based data is now pervasive across the IT landscape, from database applications, to CRM, as well as engineering and scientific information. As a result, IT managers need file storage options that are far more scalable and more easily managed than today's NAS solutions," said Bob Miller, president and CEO of ONStor. "The ONStor SAN filer is the industry's first solution to fully capitalize on the inherent scalability, availability and performance of SANs to deliver enterprise-class file services. This revolutionary approach marks a significant step forward in the management, protection and delivery of enterprise data."