CrosStor Inc, the newly re-named company previously known as Programmed Logic Corp, claims that it has some major OEMs in the pipeline already signed up for its network attached storage operating system. Yesterday, the company announced that storage appliance maker Auspex Inc was using its technology.
But, according to Sue Smith, Director of Marketing at the South Plainfield, New Jersey-based company, other OEM deals will be announced over the next 12 months, the first likely to be revealed in May or June. The deals, she claims are many, and they are large. Auspex is small in comparison. They are major storage vendors and computer manufacturers, and very concerned with time to market.
Auspex, probably the first company to launch dedicated network file server hardware, has been struggling lately in the face of intense competition from new market entrants such as Network Appliance Inc. Auspex is using the CrosStor NAS storage-centric operating system and storage management software in its 4Front NS2000 network attached storage systems, launched earlier this year (CI No 3,590). The NS2000s are the first systems from Auspex to support file sharing between NT and Unix, which it achieves through using CrosStor technology. Auspex also has a deal in place for similar technology from Creative Design Solutions Inc, but CrosStor says that it believes this deal is aimed only at low-end systems.
CrosStor’s technology includes its own fast TCP/IP stack, and high performance file system, which it also licenses separately to customers such as the Santa Cruz Operation Inc. Its operating system is modular, and typically runs on top of an existing real time operating system. CrosStor uses Wind River Systems Inc’s RTOS as its system of choice. Competitors include Creative Design, Mercury Computer Systems Inc and Transoft Networks Inc. Network Appliance also has similar technology, but sells it only as a turnkey system within its own file servers.
Sue Smith of CrosStor says the company is currently trying to persuade the Storage Network Industry Association to accept its suggestions for the extension of the Microsoft CIFS file system to support FTP, so that locally held data can be transferred across the network more efficiently. Such extensions, she argues, are needed if proposed storage area networks are to take off in non-proprietary, multi-vendor installations.
