Features - Storage Innovations:

OVERLAND ANNOUNCES iSCSI OPTION FOR NEO SERIES TAPE LIBRARIES

Overland Storage Inc introduced the availability of an iSCSI connectivity option for its NEO Series tape libraries. Utilizing iSCSI technology, the award-winning NEO libraries can now easily become an available component of an IP storage area network (SAN). Users can leverage existing Ethernet infrastructures, skill sets and management tools to back up data directly to any NEO library, creating a low-cost storage solution.

"Overland was one of the first companies to embrace the benefits of iSCSI with its REO family of disk-based backup and recovery appliances launched last year," said John Matze, Overland vice president and CTO, and co-architect of the iSCSI specification. "Today, we are pleased to extend iSCSI capabilities to our NEO tape libraries, enabling IT managers to reap the benefits associated with this flexible, high-speed and cost-effective technology."

iSCSI is a standard for transporting low latency SCSI blocks across IP networks. Simple, effective and easy to manage, it uses familiar and inexpensive Ethernet technology and components to deliver Fibre Channel-like speed and the high performance equivalent of direct attached storage at a fraction of the cost -- typically as much as 50 percent less.

Overland's iSCSI connectivity option uses standard Ethernet technology to back up multiple servers using a single NEO library attached directly to the network. It supports an aggregate bandwidth of more than 130MB per second, effectively eliminating the backup server bottleneck.

"By iSCSI-enabling NEO, Overland Storage allows IT managers to leverage existing network infrastructure and expertise, consolidate and optimize backup processes, and easily implement an Overland disk- and tape-based backup strategy," said Robert Scroop, Overland vice president and general manager of the Storage Resource Business Unit. "As backup and recovery needs change, the flexibility and scalability of the NEO architecture provides both investment protection and peace of mind."