LeftHand Networksฎ, the leading provider of highly available open iSCSI SANs, today announced that it has expanded its open iSCSI SAN portfolio with support for the Dell PowerEdge 2950. With this addition, LeftHand Networks SAN/iQฎ clustered storage software supports each of the major server vendors: Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM. The open iSCSI portfolio complements the recently announced LeftHand-branded NSM storage products as well as the LeftHand Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA), and provides the companys channel partners with maximum platform choice and flexibility for their customers SAN deployments.
According to IDC, in the first quarter of 2007, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Dell accounted for more than 70 percent of global x86 server sales. Combining LeftHand Networks SAN/iQ software with an x86 server converts that server into an iSCSI storage node that delivers enterprise-class SAN capabilities when clustered.
We view LeftHand Networks SAN/iQ software support of the three market-leading server vendors as a huge plus, providing additional choice and flexibility for our customers, said Bill Stith, managing director, global storage services at Incentra Solutions. The addition of the Dell PowerEdge 2950 expands our market opportunity into new accounts, increases demand for integration services and provides an ideal SAN solution for our customers who prefer Dell servers or who have standardized on the Dell server platform. Incentra Solutions looks forward to offering LeftHands full suite of products from its HP, IBM and Dell open-platform SAN solutions to its refreshed NSM product portfolio and virtual SAN solutions.
The combination of the Dell PowerEdge 2950 server and LeftHand Networks award-winning storage management software provides customers an easy-to-deploy, highly available SAN complete with SAN/iQs rich feature set, advanced data protection and centralized management. Customers purchase SAN/iQ exclusively through LeftHand channel partners and acquire the PowerEdge 2950 from Dell. A LeftHand channel partner then integrates SAN/iQ onto the PowerEdge 2950 at the customer site, providing a robust, value-driven solution.
As we standardize our data center virtualization architecture on Dell server platforms, Enterasys is pleased that LeftHand Networks has expanded its SAN/iQ software support to include the Dell PowerEdge 2950, said Dan Petlon, vice president system quality and IT at Enterasys. We recently deployed a highly available 90 Terabyte iSCSI SAN using the combined SAN/iQ and Dell PowerEdge servers connected via cost-effective Gigabit Ethernet. This allows us to leverage our existing Dell investments and realize significant economies of scale while reducing storage cost and complexity.
The combined Dell PowerEdge 2950 with SAN/iQ software comes in three configurations; 1.8 TB 15K SAS, 3.0 TB SATA, and 4.5 TB SATA, each with 6 hot swappable disk drives; centralized SAN/iQ management and a full feature set that includes advanced thin provisioning 2.0; snapshots; distributed clustering; synchronous multi-site SAN replication; asynchronous remote copy replication; volume migration and volume cloning.
We are pleased to extend SAN/iQ support to the Dell PowerEdge 2950. Supporting the three market-leading server vendors as part of our open-iSCSI initiative enables our channel partners to satisfy any hardware brand preference that a customer may have, said Larry Cormier, vice president of marketing, LeftHand Networks. Combined with our recently announced LeftHand-branded NSMs and the LeftHand Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA), we now offer the most comprehensive portfolio of IP-based shared storage solutions in the industry. And, by allowing a customers business needs to properly drive their storage hardware decisions, LeftHand Networks continues to make storage networking easier than ever.
Availability
SAN/iQ software is currently available as a field integration offering through LeftHand Networks resellers and VARs in the United States and Canada, and value added distributors throughout Europe. The suggested retail price of SAN/iQ for the PowerEdge 2950 is $9,995.
About LeftHand Networks
LeftHand Networks pioneered IP-based storage area networks (SAN) in 2001. SANs built using LeftHands SAN/iQฎ software are uniquely able to distribute and protect data across a cluster of industry-standard storage servers. The companys patented architecture increases data availability, allows users to start small and grow the SAN seamlessly, and simplifies management. The LeftHand SAN is ideal for storage and server consolidation, multi-site SANs, and disaster recovery. For more information, contact LeftHand at info@lefthandnetworks.com.