ACADEMIA

Reldata, the provider of unified IP SAN/NAS storage gateway appliances, has signed a new distribution agreement with LapiStor, a UK based manufacturer of high performance RAID array solutions. The deal to distribute the RELDATA 9200 IP Storage Gateway will allow LapiStor to expand its business from storage subsystems, direct attached storage and fibre channel SANs, into providing network ready unified IP storage server solutions. “We noticed a growing need for an easy-to-use storage solution that delivers enterprise-class NAS and fast block-level application storage, without the need for dedicated in-house storage networking expertise,” explains Tony Howard, LapiStor’s managing director. “Our customers are invariably companies with complex storage and remote data protection problems. In 90% of cases the RELDATA 9200 will enable us to offer them a perfect solution for centralised network storage and remote data protection. It is an incredibly flexible and sophisticated product, without being complicated.” The RELDATA 9200 unified IP storage gateway removes the need for the separate integration and management of NAS and SAN systems. The gateway provides a single device to deliver high performance file (NFS and CIFS) and block (iSCSI or IP SAN) storage anywhere across a company’s existing IP/Ethernet infrastructure. At the back-end the device provides vendor agnostic connectivity to Fibre Channel, SCSI, iSCSI disk arrays and tape storage. The use of virtualisation allows the creation of one or more storage volume pools, from which capacity can be allocated dynamically at either file or block level to hosts. In addition, the Reldata 9200 provides data protection functionality, including high performance replication over IP, using a unique incremental volume snapshot technology. LapiStor searched for some time to find the right gateway product, and were disappointed by broken feature and performance promises, and by other vendors' overly complex pricing structures: “We are particularly proud that we met the ambitious feature and performance requirements that LapStor asked for from an IP storage solution,” comments Dr. Boris Anderer, Reldata’s president and CEO. “We offer partners a single price for a fully featured unit that provides more functionality than any of the competition.” Reldata’s highly competitive pricing for what is an enterprise grade product provides a strategic fit with LapiStor’s own specialisation in high-performance, low cost RAID arrays: “The combined Reldata/LapiStor offering will give us an extremely competitive price for what our customers will simply see as a single unified IP storage networking solution which answers all their needs. There is little need to overcomplicate this with talk of NAS and SAN or remote backup, other than to say that on an IP level they don’t even need to consider this anymore,” Howard concludes. “We believe that this will not only appeal to the growing number of SMEs now looking for both block and file storage, but also larger enterprises, who would normally only consider buying from one major storage brand, and who will find the price compelling enough to consider breaking away from vendor lock-in.”