US backup storage manufacturer Exabyte Corp, which lost the lead in its sector to rival Quantum Corp, is hoping to regain ground with its NetStorM product line, which represents its move into storage area networks (SANs).
NetStorM was unveiled in the US in May, and is now being rolled out across Europe. Boulder, Colorado-based Exabyte is touting it as the first end-to-end channel management application for SANs, hoping that a major part of its appeal will lie in what it considers to be the superior features of its remote, web-based management facility. These, said European product marketing manager, David Hamilton, include a unique monitoring ability. Traditionally you could only monitor the tape libraries, but NetStorM extends that facility to the hubs, switches, adapters and servers, he explained.
NetStorM is also the first offering to include ‘SAN-ready libraries,’ argues Hamilton. By this he means fibre channel connectivity, currently available through the integration of an FC bridge into the library, as well as a facility for management of the libraries from an out-of-band Ethernet port included by Exabyte specifically for that purpose.
As for the FC connectivity of Exabyte products, Hamilton said the entire line already has it, and by the end of this year, its Mammoth 2 libraries and interface cards will move to native connectivity, obviating the need for an FC bridge. As such, the company expects to be ahead of the competition (Quantum’s DLTtape, Sony’s AIT and the LTO consortium, with Ultrium).
While other players can boast 100Gb per cartridge of storage space and Mammoth 2 will have only 60, Hamilton says the Exabyte product’s sustained transfer rate will be superior, at 12 Megabytes/second compared to around 5 for DLT and 10 for Ultrium.
