"Best of the Best" products of 2003 will make 2004 a better year! - Certance's CP 3100 - Dantz's EMC Symmetrix DMX series

Computer Technology Review,  Jan, 2004  

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This month--and also in February--CTR honors those products nominated by their manufacturers as their "Best of the Best" in 2003. These are the products virtually guaranteed to make a powerful impact as the economy gathers speed in the months ahead.

This unique--and exclusive--section will allow you to keep best of breed solutions at your fingertips in 2004.

CTR will cover the technologies behind these products throughout the year, with the same authority and thoroughness you've come to expect. That's even more reason to carefully read each and every "Best of the Best" product in this issue. Only CTR provides the optimum environment for both the products and the technology.

Computer Technology Review salutes the very best products of 2003--chosen by the companies that produced them, and described in their own words!

WestWorld polled the universe of storage companies via email, requesting each to submit one and only one product that typified their best effort. Further, to explain in 250 words or less the reasons for so choosing, and why the innovativeness of this product will help their sales efforts in 2004.

Every attempt was made to reach all companies or their p.r. agencies. If, for any reason, a company was left out, they should contact CTR as soon as possible to arrange for their product to appear in upcoming issues. Be assured, every company that submits a product will see it appear in print.

An External FireWire 1394 device for capturing, editing and exporting both analog and digital video, PYRO A/V Link now features component in and out, a unique feature for this product category. New Audio Lock Technology, an advanced solution for keeping video and audio in sync.

PYRO A/V Link is a universal solution for capturing video from analog sources (RCA, S-VHS or Component) such as an 8mm camcorder, a VCR, a TV or an HDTV set-top box (480i component only); and from digital devices such as DV camcorders and DV cameras. Captured video and edited videos can be output to analog sources (RCA S-VHS or Component) or to digital sources for burning to a VCD, SVCD, or DVD disk, recording to a VHS tape and published on the Internet.

With broad format support, consumers and businesses have a single solution for creating new videos and converting older VHS tapes to CDs and DVDs. They can also mix clips from VHS tapes with digital content to create videos that can be output to either the analog format (S-VHS tape) or the digital format (CD/DVD).

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

www.adstech.com

In the Solaris world, JNI (which has recently merged with AMCC) redefined enterprise storage area network availability and performance with its No-Reboot HBA driver. This driver was the first and only in its field to give network administrators the ability to dynamically alter target and LUN configurations, update driver parameters, unload and reload HBA drivers and add or remove devices--all without rebooting. Engineers at AMCC estimate that by eliminating unnecessary server reboots, this driver could save the typical enterprise-class Solaris customer more than 2 1/2 weeks of downtime annually. Designed for the most mission-critical and demanding SAN environments, the JNI AMCC No-Reboot driver supports AMCC 2Gb HBAs to combine unprecedented uptime with best-in-class Fibre Channel performance.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

www.amcc.com

Today, it seems that almost every vendor in the storage market has jumped on the ILM bandwagon, especially considering the new government regulations on data retention that are driving "compliance" to the top of the IT priority list. The idea that data has different values at different moments in time and should therefore be managed differently in different phases of the lifecycle is a core design objective of the Arkivio auto-stor software.

Arkivio recognized the need for software that allows for multiple levels of "data valuation," where various criteria are weighed before any action is taken well ahead of the majority of vendors now touting ILM solutions. In fact, in 2003, Arkivio released the third revision of its Arkivio auto-stor software.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The Arkivio auto-stor software integrates SRM & HSM functionality in one complete ILM solution. It utilizes patented technology to identify and manage data and storage resources from "cradle to grave," classifies and assigns value to information resources based on business priorities, and automates the appropriate data management actions (i.e. migrate, move, copy, and delete) as those values change over time. IT departments can significantly streamline costs and management efficiencies using Arkivio auto-stor to consolidate and optimize their utilization of resources while reducing both the acquisition and management cost of storage over time. This granularity elevates the software well beyond many of the simple storage resource reporting or data movers/migrators that are available today.

www.arkivio.com

The FireFly DM series digital virtual library is the world's first fully electronic, non-robotic, true, random access library to be based on Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (Serial ATA) technology. Delivering as many as 48 concurrent strings of data per library at an unprecedented 400MB/s, the ASACA FireFly is the next-generation nearline solution for High Data Broadcast and other such data intensive environments. FireFly offers up to four 2Gbit Fibre Channel ports, allowing JBOD, RAID 0,1,5 and RAID 10 to be mixed and matched.