NexSAN CTO Mr.Watson visiting Knitlogix customers

Nexsan CTO Gary Watson Named 2010 Storage Superstar by CRN Magazine, Visiting Knitlogix customers in India

Mr. Watson who is honored for a Decade of Innovations in Disk Storage Technology is visiting Knitlogix India customers to speak about the NexSAN products and technology benefits in IT infrastructure.

Read on an article by Everything Channel and NexSAN press…

Thousand Oaks, Calif., July 27, 2010 — Nexsan, a leading storage system provider, today announced that its Chief Technology Officer Gary Watson has been chosen as a "2010 Storage Superstar" by CRN Magazine. The CRN Storage Superstar awards recognize the achievements and contributions of visionaries and innovators in the data storage industry.

CRN recognized Mr. Watson for more than a decade of achievements and his consistent breakthroughs in disk-based storage technology. Mr. Watson co-founded Nexsan in 1999 and spearheaded the development of the industry's first enterprise-class ATA storage arrays. He was also responsible for the first ATA-based disk storage systems to rival tape ushering in affordable disk-to-disk backup. Mr. Watson is also credited with developing the first RAID system with an embedded web GUI for simple remote management.

Mr. Watson's achievements include advanced power-managed storage with AutoMAID® (Automatic Massive Array of Idle Disks) technology enabling energy-efficient disk storage for use in primary, backup and archive storage environments. Nexsan's power-managed storage systems serve as the foundation for the company's innovative storage applications like data deduplication. Leveraging AutoMAID, organizations reduce storage related energy costs as much as 60% while lowering data center cooling requirements for green IT efficiencies.

Mr. Watson has also delivered innovations to enhance the reliability of high density storage systems. Examples of these developments include rotational vibration dampening for enhanced disk drive longevity, the use of engineered materials to absorb vibration and reduce mechanical failures, and advanced cooling designs. As a result, customers benefit from reliable storage system performance that significantly lowers maintenance related downtime.

"Solution providers who design and deploy storage infrastructures deal with a technology where change is the only constant," said Kelley Damore, VP, Editorial Director, Everything Channel. "Small businesses and enterprises alike need to safely store, back-up, recover and archive data and these Storage Superstars are many of the unsung heroes who have helped invent better ways of doing this. Yet many of these individuals seldom get the recognition they deserve. We congratulate all the 'Storage Superstars,' and are happy to provide an opportunity to shine the spotlight on them."

"This is a wonderful honor from CRN and it validates Nexsan's vision of leveraging reliable, highly efficient storage designs to deliver enterprise-class storage systems purpose built for the midmarket," said Mr. Watson. "This innovative approach has established new standards in storage density, energy-efficiency and price/performance."

Learn more about the entire Nexsan product line at www.nexsan.com/products.php.

About Nexsan

Nexsan Corporation is a leading provider of energy-efficient, long-term storage systems. Nexsan delivers secure storage appliances and modular, capacity-optimized disk-storage systems for a broad range of applications including fixed content storage and archiving, email, medical imaging, compliance and litigation support, disk-based backup, digital video security, and rich media. Nexsan's solutions are the choice of small and medium-sized companies as well as large global enterprises and major governmental agencies around the world that are seeking cost-correct, high-density storage solutions. Founded in 1999 and based in Thousand Oaks, California, Nexsan sells its products exclusively through a select global network of VARs, OEMs and system integrators. For more information, please see the company's website at www.nexsan.com.

About Everything Channel Everything Channel is the premier provider of IT channel-focused events, media, research, consulting, and sales and marketing services. With over 30 years of experience and engagement, Everything Channel has the unmatched channel expertise to execute integrated solutions for technology executives managing partner recruitment, enablement and go-to-market strategy in order to accelerate technology sales. Everything Channel is a UBM company. To learn more about Everything Channel, visit us at http://www.everythingchannel.com.

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Nexsan Technologies is a registered trademark and AutoMAID is a trademark of Nexsan. All other product or company names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

For more information please contact: info@knitlogix.com

Knitlogix Press

http://www.knitlogix.com/

Dot Hill Inks Key Indian Distribution Partnership with Knitlogix Expanding Global Reach of Storage Solutions

Global Storage Solutions Provider Knitlogix Will Market Dot Hill Fibre Channel and iSCSI RAID Arrays to Enterprises and Government Organizations.

LONGMONT, Colo., Sept 24, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX News Network/ -- Dot Hill Systems Corp. (Nasdaq: HILL), a provider of world-class storage solutions and software for OEMs, open storage partners and system integrators, today announced a new distribution agreement with global technology integrator Knitlogix Pvt, Ltd., based in Hyderabad, India.
Knitlogix Private Limited, which is a part of Knitlogix Inc., based in the US, provides storage integration in the areas of Storage Area Network (SAN), Network Attached Storage (NAS), Disk-based backup, De-Duplication, Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR).With offices across India, the Middle East, and the US, Knitlogix is a global storage solutions integrator with core expertise in open systems and legacy systems. Under the terms of the agreement, Knitlogix will market, integrate, and support the entire line of Dot Hill 3000 and 2002 storage arrays throughout India.

Knitlogix provides storage solution integration in two categories, High Performance Storage Integration (HPSS) and Optimally Integrated Storage Solutions (OISS), to meet customer needs. Knitlogix helps customers attain better returns on investment for their storage infrastructures with low total cost of ownership. Knitlogix also offers full-scale storage services from design, integration and support through its dedicated support engineers, 24x7 Call Center, and India's first IT storage portal at http://www.knitlogix.com/.
"Dot Hill offers an incredibly broad range of modular storage solutions that covers virtually every server and storage interface," said Raj Kumar G - regional director of Knitlogix. "As a leading supplier to some of the top OEMs in the world, Dot Hill's credentials are most impressive, and its AssuredSAN line for channel partners is feature-rich, including a comprehensive suite of disaster recovery offerings."

"Knitlogix is a storage-focused company with a wealth of experience in developing technology markets in India," said Garrett Wein, vice president worldwide OEM sales, Dot Hill Systems. "As we continue to expand our presence in India, we have every confidence that Knitlogix, with its 24x7 call center and network of highly capable engineers, will be a valuable representative of the Dot Hill brand in this key geography."

Dot Hill 3000 and 2002 Series storage solutions are easily customized by partners and customers to meet varying performance, capacity, and other specific business requirements. Dot Hill next-generation 3000 Series RAID arrays support 8Gb Fibre Channel storage area networks (SANs), dual interface 8Gb Fibre Channel/1Gb iSCSI and 6Gb JBODs, and feature optional Dot Hill AssuredRemote(TM) data management software for remote replication. Advanced data management such as AssuredCopy(TM), Dot Hill's volume copy technology, enables the creation of data volume copies for additional data protection, and Dot Hill's AssuredSnap(TM) snapshot capability for improved data availability and business continuity, allows organizations to reduce the burden of meeting modern data retention policies.
Dot Hill 3000 and 2002 Series arrays are equipped with a number of energy-saving features including Dot Hill's patented EcoStor(TM) "green" battery-free alternative for cache memory, drive spin-down and DC power options. Dot Hill storage solutions scale to support up to 144 SAS, near-line SAS, SSD and SATA disk drives, totaling up to 192 terabytes of capacity based on today's 2 TB disk drive capacities, and feature a 2U 12 or 24-drive rack-mount footprint.
Knitlogix and Dot Hill will exhibit at Interop 2010 Mumbai on September 28-30. Visit us at Interop to learn about Dot Hill storage products, as well as special introductory offers and raffles to win surprise gifts. For information, visit http://www.interop.in/.

About Dot Hill
Offering enterprise-class security, availability and data protection, Dot Hill provides responsive and adaptive storage solutions to meet 24/7/365 business demands. With Dot Hill, businesses can proactively safeguard and manage business data, and leverage operational efficiencies to save time, effort and expense today, while meeting the evolving business needs of tomorrow strategically and cost effectively. Headquartered in Longmont, Colo., Dot Hill has offices and/or representatives in China, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Singapore, United Kingdom, and the United States.
For more information on Dot Hill, visit http://www.dothill.com/.
HILL-G
Certain statements contained in this press release regarding matters that are not historical fact are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Because such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by the statements. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding: the size and timing of orders placed by Knitlogix; the size of the Indian market for storage solutions; any improvement to Dot Hill's financial results due to its relationship with Knitlogix; and the benefits or performance of Dot Hill's products in any particular environment. The risks that contribute to the uncertain nature of the forward-looking statements include: that the relationship between Dot Hill and Knitlogix may terminate at any time and does not require minimum purchases; changing customer preferences in the open systems computing market; and unforeseen supply, technological, intellectual property or engineering issues. Plus, there are many other risks not listed here that may affect Dot Hill's business, as well as the forward-looking statements contained herein. To learn about such risks and uncertainties, you should read the risk factors set forth in the company's public filings with the SEC, including the Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q most recently filed by Dot Hill. All forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date on which they were made. Contact:
Steve Sturgeon
Lutz PR
858-472-5669
ssturgeon@san.rr.com
Company Contact:
Ruth Macdonald
Marketing Communications Manager
720-839-6614
ruth.macdonald@dothill.com
SOURCE Dot Hill Systems Corp.
Copyright (C) 2010 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

CLOUD COMPUTING

Cloud computing is a generic term for anything that delivers hosted services on a networks. Cloud computing consists of two main sections – the front end and the back end, connected to each other through a network, usually the Internet. The front end consists of user computers (client) and the back end is called the “cloud” which includes storage, processing, servers and other similar services. Typically, cloud services are sold on demand, by either the minute or hour. Services can also be tailored so that users can have as little or as much of a service they require at a given point of time. By using cloud computing, users can avoid capital expenditure on hardware, software, and services where they pay a provider only for what they use.

A central server monitors traffic and client demands to ensure a smooth operation. The server follows a set of protocols and uses special software called middleware. Middleware allows networked computers to communicate with each other. If a cloud computing company has a large number of clients, then the data storage requirements are increased significantly. The increase in data capacity is required for redundancy, where copies of client data are stored at various locations as backup to mitigate against data loss.

With appropriate middleware, a cloud computing system could execute any programs a standard computer can run. The advantages of using a cloud-based system would result in clients being able to access their applications and data from location and at any time by connecting using a computer linked to the internet. Secondly, by using computers on a remote location, the costs of using hardware on client computers is reduced significantly. Additionally, using remote hardware eliminates the requirement of having expensive software installed on client computers.

Cloud services can be classified as public or private. A public cloud sells services to anyone on the internet. A private cloud, on the other hand, is a private network that supplies hosted services to a limited number of people. When a service provider uses a public cloud to create a private cloud service, the resultant cloud is called a virtual public cloud or hybrid cloud.

Services offered by cloud computing can be classified into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, and Software-as-a-Service. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provides virtual servers with unique IP addresses and blocks of storage on demand. Users benefit from an API from which they can control their servers. As customers can pay for exactly the amount of service they use, like for electricity or water, this service is also called utility computing. Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is a set of software and development tools hosted on the provider's servers. Developers can create applications using the provider's APIs but platform interoperability standards are yet to be developed. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is the most well known category. In SaaS, the provider allows the customer only to use its applications. The software interacts with the user through a user interface. These applications can be anything from web-based email, to applications such as Twitter or Facebook.

Concerns regarding cloud computing include privacy and security. Since the data is not in the same physical location, and handled by an outside agent, security of this data is paramount. Additionally, since public clouds are accessible through the internet, a user’s privacy might be breached if safeguards are not present. The above concerns can be mitigated thought strong encryption, passwords, and access controls.

Article by Nicholas Alphonso; Knitlogix Technology Consultant from Perth, Australia

Cloud Computing - Computing slowly moving to the "pay as you go" era.

Data centres in its current form may not exist for much longer into the future. Data is moving to the cloud. The kind of computing that the Google, Amazon, Facebook, and others have become synonymous with will come to common data centre realm soon.

Today, IT managers add capacity, fault tolerance, fail over, load balancing, and other data centre features much painstakingly for storage scalability and performance in an incessant manner. Just when they begin to feel that they have enough capacity and performance built in to their systems, that they have made their data centre future proof, there is a new need on the performance or expandability front.

Cloud computing will make it much less painful to manage, scale and develop a reliable, high performance platform without running a single data centre. Cloud computing is often compared to electrical utility where one pays for what he uses and when he uses. Gartner predicts that by "2012, 80 percent of Fortune 1000 enterprises will be paying for some cloud computing services, and 30 percent will be paying for cloud computing infrastructure services."

Amazon.com is a perfect example for the future of cloud computing. They have now come to offer computing power over the web to would be customers. "Since early 2006, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has provided companies of all sizes with an infrastructure web services platform in the cloud. With AWS you can requisition computing power, storage, and other services–gaining access to a suite of elastic IT infrastructure services as your business demands them."

Cloud computing offers significant cost savings for IT functions that are large-scale as well as small scale. Other advantages include management and scalability.

Six layers within the cloud computing are cloud clients, services, application, platform, storage, and infrastructure. Example of cloud computing that’s already out there include Google Docs, the MS Office competitor and Slide Rocket (for great online presentations). Cloud computing relates to Web 2.0 and which is utilised by sites such as Salesforce.com (the famed CRM on the web).

While we have examples of Google Docs for SaaS (Software as a service) model, we have Amazon.com web services in HaaS (Hardware as a service) as example where we can actually purchase computing power already.

"Gartner’s named Amazon, Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Microsoft, and IBM as vendors that are leading the charge towards computing in the cloud."

Whatever said and done, at the moment Cloud Computing is hardly more than a buzz word and much more has to happen for it to get into the serious main stream business. It can be expected that in the next five years or so, we will get into more serious use of cloud computing. Those who adopt this technology now can be termed as visionary though we can expect a lot of opposition from traditional data centre managers who might be fearful for their career as cloud gathers to take it away.

So, the future where we stop worrying about our server being up, may not be far away. It is already here, we just have to figure out what we are going to do with it.

External References for you.

Gartner, Google discuss future of cloud computing
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/112339,gartner-google-discuss-future-of-cloud-computing.aspx

Amazon Web Services.
http://aws.amazon.com/

What is Cloud Computing? - Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PNuQHUiV3Q

Explaining Cloud Computing - Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hplXnFUlPmg

By T. P. Gopinath, Director - e-Business
Knitlogix

3PAR Utility Storage and iSCSI

iSCSI is a technology which is much cheaper and easier to deploy compared to fibre channel. However, the iSCSI has never attained respectable deployment levels for storage as Fiber channel. That was mainly due to its poor performance vs Fibre. When it came to performance, iSCSI often lagged.

But, iSCSI over 10G Ethernet is expected to change the game altogether. iSCSI over 10G Ethernet will begin to get major levels of deployment within the next few years. Tide is turning for iSCSI with the fibre based technology taking a back seat.

Cost is one of the main factors that attract or repel corporates to a new technology. On the cost front, there is no technology to beat iSCSI. Apart from the cost, ease of supporting an iSCSI infrastructure compared to a fibre channel, is also a driving force. While fibre needs costly components and expensive tech support specialists, iSCSI can be handled relatively easily because it makes use of the ubiquitous Ethernet network.

Trends in the IT infrastructure is by all means towards virtualisation. Virtualisation of servers and even desktops of late, is driving the need for more and more storage. It does not hurt to take the iSCSI route for corporates as long as it serves the purpose and does it cheap.

Even though the support and interest in iSCSI is fast developing, we can not expect the fibre technology to vanish anytime soon. Fibre will remain entrenched in corporate data centres' storage technology, for years to come. However we can expect more and more new entrants into storage infrastructure building as well as many existing data centres, to experiment with iSCSI and iSCSI over 10G as it matures.

3PAR, as part of their main product line-up of Inserv storage servers, makes it easy for its customers to benefit from iSCSI. Inserv products extend support to both Fibre and IP based SANs enabling the customer to make use of both technologies on a case by case basis.

It is a beauty to connect your storage array with the server using a built in gigabit controller instead of requiring to depend upon costly HBAs, its associated drivers, and additional configuration. This improves the speed at which server deployments and storage allotments become possible. iSCSI controllers can be added to 3PAR Inserv storage arrays seamlessly and non disruptively.

While discussing iSCSI, it becomes imperative to discuss TCP offloading too.

"TCP Offload Engine or TOE is a technology used in network interface cards to offload processing of the entire TCP/IP stack to the network controller". It becomes a remarkable way to free the load on the CPU which normally has the responsibility to handle the processing overhead coming from these high speed adapters.

TCP offload is primarily used by high-speed network interfaces, such as gigabit Ethernet and 10 gigabit Ethernet, where processing overhead of the network stack remains a concern.

In a more practical level, TOE refers to the network card itself. iSCSI protocol load the CPUs heavily due to the heavy TCPIP processing. TOE goes a long way in reducing that load.

3PAR's iSCSI utility storage is nicely priced and available for Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux, and Microsoft Windows. The price includes installation, training, and three years support.

External Links:

3PAR Utility Computing
10 Gigabit Ethernet - Wikipiedia page.

By T. P. Gopinath, Director - e-Business
Knitlogix

3PAR Thin Copy Desktop with VMWare's VDI.

3PAR Thin Copy Desktop with VMWare's VDI.

Thin clients are not alone. They have the company of VDIs now. Fat OS is not any more needed. Latest that the corporates like is, VDIs or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. In VDI, you run your PC out of a powerful server located in your organisations data center. This server boasts running tens and sometimes hundreds of desktop OS's virtually.

VDI makes managing, administering, and maintaining desktops much easier than traditional desktops. It helps focus on the data center rather than having to look after a large number of PCs deployed across the campus. From the users perspective, he gets nothing less than a full capability desktop except for the fact that he does his authentication into a PC sitting virtually in the data centre. The user uses a thin client based desktop to achieve this task.

With Cloud computing dominating the news and Microsoft itself thinking what to do with windows in future, it makes lot of sense to virtualise PC and provide a user with only a thin desktop to connect to his / her PC sitting in the data center.

Desktop virtualisation makes sure that user gets a natural looking desktop while also utilising a thin client. While VDI allows the users to install software themselves, they are also able to connect to their desktop from other locations without being limited to their desk. The product that enables such virtualisation of the desktop comes from several manufacturers. Citrix Xen Desktop, Sun VDI, and VDI Works are some examples.

A major part of the successful VDI implementation is a strategic, reliable, and a high performance storage subsystem. This is where a powerful product from the utility computing leader 3PAR comes into picture.

Through a four step process such as the following, 3PAR Thin Copy Desktop makes the storage component of the VMWare's VDI highly robust.

These steps involve creating a golden image of OS, applications using VM template, provisioning VM-hosted boot images with thin copy Desktop Script, Provisioning a thin volume for storing user data.

3PAR's Thin copy Desktop makes it easy to host a new user within seconds. This takes out a long waiting time traditional for preparation and setting up of a new PC. 3PAR product complements VMWare's VDI with its highly acclaimed expertise in handling storage. Organisations want it easy and reliable for starting off a new employee. VMWare's product combined with 3PAR's expertise on utility storage make it abundantly easy for the IT department.

One concern for a server hosting a large number of virtual desktops is how it affects the network latency as these PCs are simultaneously booted by the staff as they begin their work day. However, 3PAR solution ensures that the additional bandwidth needs of the PCS are very less compared to the golden boot image by ensuring that the bandwidth use is optimum through the Thin Copy Desktop solution.

3PAR's Thin Copy Desktop solution makes deploying the VMWare VDI a breeze through numerous enhancements in the storage provisioning and performance areas. This solution in combination with VMWare's VDI will go a long way in helping the corporate achieve their Desktop virtualisation goal.

External Links:
3PAR Introduces Thin Copy Desktop for VMware VDI
Desktop virtualization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
VDI Overview - Virtual Desktop Infrastructure - VMware

By T. P. Gopinath - Director, e-Business
Knitlogix