Features - Storage Innovations:

ADIC STRENGTHENS INTEROPERABILITY OF StorNext DATA MGMT SOFTWARE

Advanced Digital Information Corp, a supplier of Intelligent Storage solutions to the open systems market, announced the availability of a new version of StorNext. ADIC StorNext is policy-based data management software that provides organizations with a foundation for Information Lifecycle Management (ILM). The new StorNext version 2.4 features interoperability with an expanded range of operating environments and storage systems from leading vendors, including Apple, HP and EMC. Support for heterogeneous environments allows StorNext customers to easily add new applications, platforms, and storage systems to their data management infrastructure over time to take advantage of new functionality, provide redundancy and to reduce costs.

"The first step for creating an ILM infrastructure is building a policy-based data management foundation that can provide automated access, protection and retention of critical data over the long term. With StorNext data management software, this infrastructure also provides the value of heterogeneous support, allowing different applications to share the same storage infrastructure and providing a streamlined way to add new technology easily," said Paul Rutherford, ADIC vice president of software technology. "Through StorNext's open architecture, organizations can -- without disruption -- insert and manage new storage technologies into their data management framework at anytime during the life of the data."

The new software release includes general availability of full interoperability with Apple's Xsan file system, an exclusive feature of StorNext. With Xsan support, end users can add Mac-based server and storage resources to the list of platforms that can transparently share data over a SAN. And it allows IT organizations to apply ADIC's policy-based data management capabilities both to Mac environments and to heterogeneous environments that include Xsan hosts.

StorNext 2.4 also includes new support for leading storage I/O management tools, including HP StorageWorks Secure Path and EMC PowerPath. HP Secure Path is multi-path, high availability software that manages and maintains continuous data access to HP disk storage systems, using advanced path management technology between servers and storage. EMC PowerPath is a server-resident software solution that integrates multiple path I/O capabilities, automatic load balancing, and path failover functions into one comprehensive package for use on various servers connected to an EMC Symmetrix and/or EMC CLARiiON system. The new release also extends StorNext storage manager support to HP automated tape libraries.