Well, I"m back from vacation (thank you if you noticed I was away), and I"m catching up with what happened in the storage world. As usual, there are plenty of new things to talk about, one of which is the new Texas Memory Systems RamSan 400 unit with 4Gb FC (Fibre Channel) connections.
This might not seem too exciting, because, after all, other vendors are also implementing 4Gb FC on their storage arrays. The storage targets from Texas Memory Systems, however, are based on solid-state disks, which means that unlike units based on spinning disks, they have no spindle rotation delay and do not seek time penalties.
When you eliminate these two performance killers from disk operations, you have a good chance of getting applications running close to wire speed. That makes the expensive but wickedly fast RamSan units popular in many vendors" labs.
Texas Memory Systems claims jaw-dropping performance figures for its RamSan 400, with transfer rates up to 3GBps (yes, gigabytes), and the company has commissioned a TPC-C benchmark to prove how much faster the new unit is in a database environment. Just think of how much boost the new unit would give your critical apps! (Actually, if you already have a RamSan roadrunner you can easily update it with 4Gb FC connections. More information is available at www.superssd.com/pressrelease/2005-07-11.htm)
Not to discount the RamSan 400, but if I could assign an award for the most interesting novelty during my time off, HDS (Hitachi Data System) would certainly get it.
What? You didn"t hear about it? Here"s the recap: HDS has announced four new systems that cover the space south of its top-tier TagmaStore, with storage devices targeting entry-level to midtier customers.
The larger Network Storage Controller unit, called NSC55, is based on the same architecture as the flagship TagmaStore. The NSC55 supports a variety of OSes, including mainframes, and offers internal capacity of up to 72TB, to which you can attach up to 16PB (petabytes) of external storage.
On that galaxy-size capacity, you can run just about every one of Hitachi"s management applications, including point-in-time-copies, disk and tape backups, and synchronous and asynchronous remote replicas. With those features in mind, I am not surprised that both HP and SUN are going to add new devices based on the NSC55 to their portfolio.
Did I mention that connectivity is exclusively FC? That applies to all four models -- and don"t expect to mount anything other than FC drives on the NSC55.
One step down from the NSC55 on the HDS storage pyramid are Adaptable Modular Storage units -- the AMS500 and AMS200, both based on a dual-controller, shared-bus architecture. The AMS units can mount a combination of FC and SATA drives, with internal capacity ranging up to 88TB on the larger AMS500 model.
You can run numerous types of management software on those two models, but oddly enough the AMS200 doesn"t offer remote replicas and you can do only synchronous remote replicas on the AMS500. Although you can eventually update from the AMS200 to the AMS500, there is no update path to or from the NSC model.
Last but not least is the Workgroup Modular System, or WMS100, the "kid" of the HDS family. The WMS100 is also based on dual-controller architecture, offering a capacity of up to 42TB but only with SATA drives. Don"t let that junior label confuse you, though: The WMS100 supports the same variety of OSes and can run essentially the same applications as the AMS200. It cannot, however, update to larger models.
The differences between AMS and WMS models seem to stem more from marketing choices than from real technical barriers, but there is a profound architectural difference between these lower-end units and the NSC55. Regardless of real or artificial borders, it"s difficult to imagine a customer having to cross them, with the only exception being the supported update between AMS models.
Moreover, all the new models can be managed using the same applications, namely the AppIQ-based HiCommand Storage Services Manager, which constitutes both an example to follow for other vendors and a much needed unified cockpit for customers.
On a similar note, it"s also worth mentioning that all these new devices can run the Enterprise NAS Gateway which adds NetApp-style file serving to their already extensive software portfolio.
So, I am glad to report that nothing much has changed in the storage market during my vacation: Vendors keep pushing new products to attain more performance, better management, and enhanced interoperability. That may be old news, but it"s still good news.
Enjoy your summer.