Network Appliance Inc is to release the fifth generation of its file server appliance family today (Monday), rejecting the Intel option and reverting to an Alpha-only product line. Santa Clara, California-based NetApp says its F7–series of file servers run up to six times faster than general purpose alternatives, meaning standard servers from Sun Microsystems Inc, Hewlett Packard Co and Compaq Computer Corp – its main competition. The F700s run NetApp’s Data ONTAP specialized operating system and can file serve in mixed Unix and NT environments. Suddenly a $200m turnover company, NetApp has grown fast, and says it’s following a similar strategy to that already mapped out by Cisco Systems Inc. Cisco started in TCP/IP routing, then went multiprotocol, and then began concentrating on network infrastructure, said NetApp vice president and co-founder Dave Hitz. We’re doing the same. Network infrastructure meant adding a caching ability to its file servers, which it got through last year’s acquisition of privately-held Internet Middleware Corp, founded by University of Southern California professor Peter Danzig, one of the pioneers of internet cacheing. Sun Microsystems had also been interested in the company. Now cacheing makes up a major part of NetApp’s business – which is nevertheless also growing in the commercial world through marketing alliances with Oracle Corp and enterprise applications vendor SAP AG. One possible threat to NetApp’s business, however, is all the talk about storage area networks. The claims of the SAN vendors sound similar to ours said Hitz, But they are dealing with raw disk data. Unix and NT file systems are very different. NetApp’s file system software includes data sharing between Windows and NT, supporting NFS and CIFS data formats from both Unix and NT systems and HTTP for web support. It also integrates Unix file permission and administration tools into the file system, and has native support for NT administration tools and backup software. Hitz said the decision to move to Alpha was easy to make because we don’t have third party developers writing applications for us. The increased processor speed along with faster communications infrastructure possible through Gigabit Ethernet and fibre channel, has finally taken away the performance penalty once associated with file servers, and opened up the size of the market. There are three models in the new NetApp range: the F760 top-end system, F740 midrange and F720 entry-level system. Prices start at just under $20,000 for the F720, $40,000 for the F740, and $80,000 for the F760: available immediately.
