Spectra Logic Announces Scalable Backup Solution for Multiple NetApp Filer Environments

Business Wire, Feb 3, 2000

BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 3, 2000

Spectra Logic Partners With Network Appliance, Vixel, Legato and

VERITAS to Deliver a Cost-Effective, Certified SAN Solution to Allow Shared Tape Resources to Network Appliance Customers Without Impacting

LAN Traffic

Spectra Logic Corporation, today announced a scalable backup solution for Network Appliance Filer environments. Utilizing the newest hardware and software management products from Spectra Logic, Vixel, VERITAS and Legato, customers can now take advantage of both Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Fibre Channel-based Storage Area Network (SAN) architectures in a single, affordable solution.

Network Appliance's NAS-based filer products are being used as the primary storage vehicle for many of today's fastest moving companies. This widespread success has created a mission-critical backup problem for companies with multiple filers spread across their enterprise.

&uot;NetApp customers have been approaching us for several years looking for a good method of backing up multiple filers,&uot; said Nathan Thompson, CEO of Spectra Logic. &uot;Through the strong alliance between NetApp, Vixel, Legato, and VERITAS we are now able to offer customers a solution that meets these needs.&uot;

The Network Attached Storage (NAS) Approach

Network Appliance has seen incredible success with its &uot;appliance&uot; approach to storing, managing and accessing the data, which fuels today's information age. Network Appliance filers offer extreme reliability, scalability and simplified manageability built around an NAS architecture. The NAS approach delivers data to corporate end users 7x24x365 without the management burdens of traditional direct-attached storage products. Users access this NAS data utilizing the commonplace LAN topology found in today's growing businesses. As the volume of data grows, NAS architectures have inherent advantages over traditional direct-attached storage methods where primary storage is directly attached to servers via older interconnect technologies such as SCSI and IDE. The ability to add additional storage (scalability), simplified management tasks, and increased data availability are just a few of these advantages which allow IT managers to reduce risks, save money and focus on more important issues in their particular marketplaces.

Storage Area Network (SAN) Architectures

As storage volumes have grown, age-old interface technologies such as SCSI have begun to limit deployments of storage attached to today's computer infrastructures. Fibre Channel is one of today's newest interface technologies. Leveraging the existing knowledge base of SCSI peripherals, Fibre Channel has addressed many of its predecessor's downfalls. Much longer cable lengths, 100 MB/second bandwidth, and a network-like packet-based protocol which allows users to take advantage of switches and hubs to build larger &uot;storage area networks&uot; (SANs), are just a few of the benefits Fibre Channel brings to the table. Fibre Channel is also used to pull traffic off of the LAN, freeing up LAN bandwidth for user of the data. This growth of mission-critical data places an ever-increasing amount of pressure on system administrators to protect it and make it available 100% of the time. Backup strategies based on SCSI peripherals often pulls data from other servers, across the LAN and to locally attached SCSI based tape devices. Although effective in smaller environments, network backup methods have become more challenging in recent years. Tradeoffs of cost vs. bandwidth have made a no-win situation for many customers. Fibre Channel tape libraries allow users to create a SAN that separates the backup data from the LAN.

NAS&AN Data Protection Solution

This announcement follows on the heels of a strategic alliance announcement between Spectra Logic, Network Appliance (NASDAQ: LGTO), Vixel (NASDAQ: VIXL), Legato (NASDAQ: LGTO), VERITAS (NASDAQ: VRTS), and Quantum/ATL (NYSE: DSS). The alliance launch titled, &uot;Multivendor NAS&AN Data Protection Solution&uot; was kicked off with a large event in San Francisco, CA on February 2, 2000. The solution marks the first collaboration between Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Fibre Channel-based Storage Area Network (SAN) vendors yielding a mixed-interface solution encompassing both primary storage and backup resources. This collaboration allows users to access data through NAS appliances (NetApp filers) and efficiently back them up to tape utilizing a SAN. Until now, SAN and NAS camps have been pitted as competing technologies. Users can now benefit from the advantages of both technologies.

About The Solution

Spectra Logic has now demonstrated a SAN-based backup architecture for Network Appliance filer environments utilizing its Fibre Channel-based tape libraries, a Fibre Channel switch from Vixel Corporation, and popular storage management software from VERITAS and Legato. The solution allows multiple filer customers to take advantage of a more cost-effective and manageable backup strategy than was previously available. Utilizing the SAN-based approach, users can build a backup architecture that can be scaled as the number and capacity of their filer pool grows. In the past, each filer added required either its own backup device or created additional backup traffic on the LAN.