SAN tool takes some of the backup, storage functions away from servers
Data General Corp. has built a new storage area network product with end-to-end Fibre Channel connections to simplify data replication and improve performance by offloading some storage and backup functions from LAN servers.
By Patricia Daukantas
GCN Staff
Data General Corp. has built a new storage area network product with end-to-end Fibre Channel connections to simplify data replication and improve performance by offloading some storage and backup functions from LAN servers.
SANbackup from Data General's Clariion Advanced Storage Division of Southborough, Mass., has all high-speed Fibre Channel and no SCSI connections, said Peter Gibbs, Clariion's marketing director.'' Users can back up multiple servers simultaneously to the same tape library, Gibbs said, and individual employees can recover their own data if they have the necessary server permissions.
Storage market leader EMC Corp. of Hopkinton, Mass., this month announced it will buy Data General for $1.05 billion. EMC will supplement its product with the Clariion line.
A typical SANbackup bundle consists of a dedicated Data General Aviion backup server running Microsoft Windows NT, tape drives from Storage Technology Corp. of Louisville, Colo., and Legato NetWorker Power Edition software from Legato Systems Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif. Host bus adapters and professional services for installation and verification are included.
Entry-level SANbackup configurations cost $80,000 to $90,000, and high-end setups could reach $300,000, Gibbs said.
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John Tyrrell, federal sales manager for the Clariion division, said he expected the SANbackup line to arrive on the company's General Services Administration Information Technology Schedule last month. It is also available on NASA's Scientific and Engineering Workstation Procurement II.
Data General also announced its first eight-way server for Windows NT based on the Intel Profusion chip set. The Aviion AV 8900 enterprise server accepts two to eight 550-MHz Pentium III Xeon processors, each with up to 2M of Level 2 cache.
Contact Data General at 508-898-5000.