Features - Financial Plays Of The Week:

StoneFly, McDATA CONSOLIDATE SERVERS FOR iSCSI PROVISIONING

StoneFly Networks Inc, an innovator of iSCSI-based storage provisioning appliances, announced a strategic partnership with McDATA Corp to provide cost-effective storage provisioning with an Internet Protocol (IP) SAN through local aggregation and server consolidation. As part of this announcement, StoneFly's flagship product, the Storage Concentrator, has been certified under McDATA's OPENready Partner Interoperability Program. The McDATA/StoneFly solution leverages iSCSI technology to provide IT departments with an ideal way to harness the benefits of existing SAN technology investments in servers and storage.

Both StoneFly and McDATA products are available immediately through Dell Inc as part of the company's Software & Peripherals program. The combined solution lets organizations pool storage into a single, centrally managed, enterprise-wide SAN and then connects departmental servers to this SAN. Key components include McDATA's Sphereon family of Fabric Switches, which provide on-demand connectivity for SAN environments of all sizes, and StoneFly's Storage Concentrator, an iSCSI-based storage provisioning appliance, which enables real-time management and optimization of IP SANs.

"In typical enterprise IT environments, servers may be isolated and experiencing uneven storage resource allocation," said Bob Preston, vice president of marketing for StoneFly Networks. "By aligning with McDATA, a worldwide leader in open storage networking, we are offering a simple and affordable way for customers to consolidate servers and implement storage provisioning through an IP SAN."

"Ensuring seamless interoperability for customers with blended technology environments is one of the reasons McDATA established its OPENready Interoperability Partner Program," said Mark Stratton, director of solutions and alliances at McDATA. "Today's server and storage consolidation announcement follows StoneFly's recent completion of a comprehensive qualification process to achieve OPENready Tested Partner status. By awarding this status to an iSCSI industry pioneer such as StoneFly, we are opening the door for customers to fulfill the promise of storage provisioning through an integrated approach."

According to John Webster, senior analyst and founder of Data Mobility Group, a Nashua, N.H.-based market research and advisory firm specializing in storage and data management, the use of blended storage networking technologies fulfills a critical market need for SANs to encompass all workgroups and isolated servers.

"The StoneFly/McDATA strategic partnership underscores growing market requirements for integrating storage networking technologies with IP SANs, providing a lower cost entry point to universal, centralized access to all storage, regardless of whether the interconnection is Fibre Channel or iSCSI," he said. "Furthermore, by selling this solution through the Dell channel, the two companies are offering widespread availability."