Features - Storage Innovations:

LUMINEX ANNOUNCES GENERAL AVAILABILITY OF Virtual/BLUE 3990

Luminex Software Inc, a leading developer of data distribution, archiving and storage products, announced the General Availability of Virtual/BLUE 3990, a new disk controller for IBM and plug-compatible mainframe systems that allows customers to natively use open systems disk storage solutions with mainframes. Luminex's release of Virtual/BLUE 3990 for General Availability was a result of extensive reliability, stress and DASD compliance testing in-house, interoperability testing at an independent alliance vendor and IBM TotalStorage Proven certification of Virtual/BLUE 3990 with the IBM zSeries servers and FAStT RAID Disk Storage.

"The TotalStorage Proven certification by IBM provides assurance to mainframe data center customers that zSeries, FAStT and Virtual/BLUE 3990 systems can be deployed in a seamless, integrated manner," said Michael Saunders, president of Luminex. "Achieving this accreditation demonstrates Luminex's commitment to delivering a proven, reliable mainframe storage connectivity solution."

Luminex's Virtual/BLUE 3990 controller technology enables the use of IBM FAStT RAID systems with z800 and VM/VSE servers. Luminex's Virtual/BLUE 3990 is the first disk vendor-independent controller that opens disk storage for use with proprietary mainframe protocols. Luminex's Virtual/BLUE 3990 controller handles all disk protocol translations for a mainframe to read and write data to open systems disk volumes, making FAStT storage fully accessible to applications running under VM/VSE, MVS, OS/390, z/OS and z/VM.

"The Luminex announcement has some pretty interesting economics behind it," commented David Hill, vice president for Storage Research at the Aberdeen Group. "What they have done is essentially make the mainframe a server on a Storage Area Network. Virtual/BLUE 3990 should be examined closely by companies looking for external disk storage for their z800 systems and by anyone needing a midline pool of storage -- that is cost-effective high capacity disk -- for their mainframe."

Steve Curtis, storage brand manager at DSG, an IBM Premier Business Partner and Luminex Virtual/BLUE 3990 channel partner, stated, "DSG is pleased to offer Luminex's Virtual/BLUE 3990 with IBM TotalStorage Proven certification to our mainframe storage customers. Virtual/BLUE 3990, combined with IBM zSeries servers and FAStT disk storage, will enable our customers to centralize storage management resulting in reduced operational costs and increased access to cost-effective storage devices for mainframe use."