NetApp unveils new midrange storage offerings

Telecomworldwire, Nov 5, 2008

TELECOMWORLDWIRE-5 November 2008-NetApp unveils new midrange storage offerings(C)1994-2008 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD http://www.m2.com

NetApp Inc (Nasdaq:NTAP), a unified storage solutions provider, announced on Tuesday (4 November) the addition of the FAS3160 and V3160, strengthening its current series of mid-range storage offerings for customers.

According to the company, the FAS3160 joins the FAS3140 and FAS3170 models, providing customers with improved price/performance, flexibility and scalability over other mid-range storage systems. The FAS3100 series of storage systems offers customers a unified storage architecture to meet their needs, as well as a common suite of application-aware software and management tools that are part of the Data ONTAP operating system. The solution also features thin provisioning, de-duplication, RAID-DP, and FlexClone, enabling customers to improve storage efficiency and performance at a lower price point.

The NetApp V3160 provides customers additional flexibility to meet their business needs by extending the features and capabilities of Data ONTAP, including de-duplication, to disk arrays from other storage vendors, such as EMC and HP.

The company also offers new eSupport automation tools, which provide customers with additional ease of use and end-to-end support for all FAS and V-Series systems. The integrated support toolset combines NetApp AutoSupport, NetApp Premium AutoSupport, and the NetApp Remote Support Diagnostics Tool to provide customers with high levels of storage availability and performance.

NetApp also said it will expand its support of 8Gb FC SAN solutions for all NetApp FAS and V-Series storage systems to deliver additional value and performance. This enables customers to address their server virtualisation demands on storage networks, while improving investment protection. The addition of an 8Gb target host bus adapter is also expected to enable FAS and V-Series customers to easily upgrade systems without additional training.

In addition, the new FAS3160, V3160, and other FAS and V-Series storage systems will be enterprise flash ready. NetApp will give customers practical options by using flash memory both as persistent storage and also for caching purposes, the company said.

The FAS/V3160 system and the eSupport product suite are available immediately. An add-on 8Gb adapter for NetApp FAS and V-Series, to enable 8Gb FC support, will be available in February 2009. The first flash plug-ins will be available in Q2 2009. No pricing details were disclosed.

((Comments on this story may be sent to tww.feedback@m2.com))