Storage Networking World opened Tuesday here and flooded the Arizona desert with announcements of new and updated storage systems.

FineGround, a provider of Web application delivery systems, unveiled FineGround Velocity-FS, its entry into the burgeoning Wide Area File Services (WAFS) solution.

Velocity-FS is designed to reduce network latency, enabling enterprise to consolidate branch office storage to a central location for easier and lower-cost management, according to Nat Kausik, CEO of FineGround. "File access protocols were designed for LAN environments and fall short on the WAN when it comes to performance," he said.

The Velocity-FS resides in front of the datacenter storage and files systems to optimize file service traffic for the wide area network (WAN). The device supports all common Internet file system (CIFS) storage and the Microsoft Distributed File System. Other WAFS systems use two systems, usually one in front of the datacenter and another at the remote site.

Velocity-FS will be generally available for US$20,000 per box by the end of the second quarter. It runs on all major storage and file systems.

Also at Storage Networking World, ADIC launched a new version of its disk-based backup storage system.

The Pathlight VX 450 is designed for mid-range datacenters with 2TB to 5TB of storage capacity, said Steve Whitner, communications director for the company. "The 450 has enterprise features at the mid-range datacenter level, such as allowing IT to backup data to tape without involving the media server," he said.

The backup software sees the disk system as a tape library, allowing it to fit easily into current environments. The Pathlight VX 450 has 4TB of usable disk capacity that can be divided into as many as 20 virtual drives, according to ADIC officials.

It supports ADIC Scalar libraries, is rack-mountable, and uses 2Gbps Fibre Channel to attach to a storage-area network. The system is expected to ship this month, starting at $60,500.

Also making announcements at Storage Networking World:

-- PMC-Sierra announced the availability of the PM2319-KIT maxSAS ReferenceSystem for fabric attached and server attached SATA/SAS disk array enclosures. The Reference System, combined with the SCSI Enclosure Services (SES) Software Development Kit (SDK) is designed to reduce development costs while accelerating time to market for storage equipment vendors.  The PM2319-KIT maxSAS Reference Design is available now at $6,995.

-- Decru, a networked data storage security provider, announced the Decru DataFort i-Series family of storage security appliances for iSCSI storage environments. The Decru DataFort i-Series appliances are available immediately, with prices starting at $9,900.