STORAGE

ANAHEIM, CA -- Computer Measurement Group (CMG) Annual Conference--The Storage Performance Council (SPC) announces SPC-1(TM), the first industry-standard benchmark for enterprise storage systems. The new benchmark, for the first time, gives customers a clearly applicable, vendor-neutral process to accurately compare and configure direct attach or network storage technology. The SPC has constructed a complete multi-platform test kit for SPC-1 that quickly evaluates performance and price/performance using a variety of storage network topologies. SPC-1 is designed to: -- Establish a level playing field for test sponsors. -- Provide value for IT consumers as well as solution integrators and engineers. -- Produce official results in an easy-to-run, easy-to-audit/verify, and easy-to-use manner. To ensure authenticity, accuracy and compliance, the SPC requires completion of its result validation process -- including audit certification and peer review -- before results become official. The SPC has formed strategic alliances with The Evaluator Group and Ideas International to be the standards organization's preferred analysts. This vendor-neutral evaluation and analysis paves the way for end-users, resellers and integrators to rapidly and confidently adopt SPC-1 as the standard for comparing and configuring storage solutions. "Enterprise applications increasingly must be online 24-7 and be online with consistently satisfactory performance," said Chuck Standerfer of the Evaluator Group. "In addition, with the advent of storage networks, configuring storage for the zero-latency enterprise requires industry-standard performance analysis tools and metrics." "For many years the storage market has been in need of a standardized and audited industry performance metric. This benchmark is targeted to have broad market appeal for providers and consumers of storage networking technology. The storage benchmark SPC-1 is characterized predominantly as a random access environment for server-class computer systems and is modeled after the most ubiquitous applications in the market today -- Web servers, database servers and email servers," said Ian Birks, chief operating officer of Ideas International. "Customers have sought a workload environment that is widespread, metrics that are realistic and usable and an implementation that is representative of sophisticated I/O applications. SPC-1 provides them the powerful tools that they need," said Alan Cade, vice president of Technical Operations at Hitachi Data Systems. The Storage Performance Council The SPC is the only industry standards organization that defines and promotes storage benchmarks as well as disseminates objective, relevant and verifiable performance data and related test tools to the computer industry and its customers. Its members include Adaptec, Compaq, Dell, The Evaluator Group, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, Ideas International, LSI Logic Storage Systems, NEC, Sun MicroSystems, Unisys and VERITAS Software. The Storage Performance Council's strategic objectives are to empower storage vendors to build better products as well as to stimulate the IT community to more rapidly trust and deploy multi-vendor storage technology. "The SPC offers customers further options to characterize performance in an open manner, providing alternatives to current benchmarking techniques," said Linda Sanford, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Storage Systems Group. "Working toward open standards benefits the industry and provides choice to our customers." "Sun has supported open standards from the start and truly believes that the SPC has built an open, interoperable standard for the storage industry. Working together and putting aside our differences, we have ultimately given customers what they want -- a high-quality, vendor-neutral benchmark for accurately comparing storage system technology," said Rhonda Holt, vice president of storage systems engineering for Sun Microsystems. "The SPC's formation of industry-standard, cross-platform benchmarks allows storage vendors to be evaluated on equal terms against one another. This will be of immense value to resellers and IT end users, and Adaptec is pleased to be part of this effort," said Mark Delsman, chief technology officer at Adaptec. "While this is an important first step for the industry, we have also formed an SPC working group to develop additional benchmarks that will result in an entire suite of tools for measuring various classes and configurations of storage." The SPC's first objective was to build a high-quality benchmark that would have the broadest possible appeal in online enterprise storage. A key future objective for the SPC is to build a benchmark primarily focused on sequential I/O processing that will represent applications such as backup/restore and video on demand. The SPC has also created a working group to begin the development of a benchmark suited for Network Attached Storage (NAS) subsystems. SPC's vision for the SPC Web site is to provide IT consumers and integrators the first database of audited and certified performance as well as price/performance results spanning manufacturers, configurations and products. This database will be the center of the storage industry. "High performance servers running I/O intensive applications such as ERP, Exchange and online transaction processing now require very high performance at the storage system, and the pressure is expected to increase," said Flavio Santoni, vice president of sales and marketing at LSI Logic Storage Systems, Inc. "The Storage Performance Council and SPC-1 will help customers ensure that the systems they buy will perform to their needs."