The DataCore SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor enhances the value of diverse storage resources by unifying advanced services such as provisioning, auto-tiering, replication and performance acceleration, all through a common storage virtualization layer. Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer is an integrated availability and performance monitoring tool that can reduce complexity, streamline operations and increase IT staff efficiency. It monitors availability and performance of heterogeneous physical and virtual server stacks, applications and network and storage devices via a single screen.

Through the integrated solution, SANsymphony-V plugs into IT Operations Analyzer, which regularly requests inventory data and updates from the storage hypervisor. This populates the single monitoring screen of IT Operations Analyzer with the latest information, keeping IT administrators abreast of meaningful changes in resources, alerting them to potential problems for proactive resolution, while offering a host of additional benefits.

“Maintaining a highly available, responsive data center has been a challenge, especially in environments with both physical and virtualized resources,” said Carlos Carreras, vice president of alliances and business development for DataCore Software. “Through our efforts with Hitachi, IT administrators can now see their entire infrastructure and receive intelligence that ensures greater performance, better decision-making and an ability to do more with less.”

“The combination of these best-of-breed technologies creates a much-needed solution for our customers,” added Frank Amato, director, Global Sales and Marketing, IT Operations Software, Hitachi Data Systems. “IT Operations Analyzer has long offered a single-pane, multi-device view, and by harnessing DataCore’s storage hypervisor for that critical area, IT administrators gain the ability to simply and effectively monitor the complete data center.”

The Virtual Reality

One of the most pressing reasons for a more comprehensive monitoring approach stems from the rapid transition to virtual servers and virtual desktops occurring amongst enterprises in recent years. Yet, in reality, virtualization initiatives have been marked by unexpected bottlenecks and single points of failures.

DataCore’s SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor overcomes many of these problems by insulating users and applications from the constant upheaval in the underlying storage devices and physical plant where they reside. IT Operations Analyzer monitors the interrelated components that make up a dynamic, virtualized data center, maintaining an inventory of the many elements and collecting vital status and alerts from each.

By using SANsymphony-V and IT Operations Analyzer together, administrators can now monitor every device in their data center infrastructure on a single screen, easily identifying issues and taking steps to proactively resolve problems before they impact productivity.

Reduced Downtime, Increased Productivity, Ease-of-Use

Monitoring the entire data center from a single console saves time and simplifies the management process, resulting in faster issue resolution, increased performance and improved availability. Here are just a few of the key benefits offered through the integration of SANsymphony and IT Operations Analyzer:

• Fast Problem Diagnosis & Resolution: the dashboard of IT Operations Analyzer features proactive alerting and a root cause analysis (RCA) engine. With built-in intelligence, RCA enables IT administrators to reduce mean time to diagnose problems by up to 90 percent, and with the ability to process large numbers of event alerts in minutes, issues can be addressed as soon as they arise. Also, RCA provides data that helps determine the probability that specific devices are causing such issues.
• Isolating Bottlenecks, Elevating Performance: IT Operations Analyzer allows thresholds to be set on devices to prevent bottlenecks, ranging from metrics like voltage levels to server performance metrics such as CPU load. When reached, action can be taken to avoid slow application response or cause outages. Congestion points can also be isolated. For instance, if there is reduced performance in a set of servers, the single-pane console might show too many competing for the same resource. Administrators can then easily fix the issue by using SANsymphony-V to redistribute workloads.
• Ease-of-Use: When enterprises become more server- or application-centric, they often reduce staff dedicated to storage, even though performance depends on how well it is provisioned and protected. The integration of SANsymphony-V into IT Operations Analyzer provides visibility into storage assets that enables staff to intuitively identify issues—without a high level of storage expertise— and resolve these before productivity suffers. In fact, in most cases, administrators gain actionable information allowing for informed decisions that actually boost performance and availability.

Availability
The DataCore SANsymphony-V plug in for Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer will be available in February 2012.

Related posts:

1. DataCore Monitoring Pack to Unify its Storage Hypervisor and Microsoft SCOM
2. VMworld 2011: DataCore to Offer Free Storage Hypervisor to VMware Professionals
3. DataCore Software Offers Free Storage Hypervisor to Microsoft Certified Professionals

PogoStor™ SAN (iSCSI) and NAS (NFS) managed appliances are Pogo Storage’s newest line of open-storage-system products, designed for IT managers who oversee dedicated cloud computing and managed-services workloads. The integrated server-based products combine the OS NEXUS Linux storage platform with LSI MegaRAID 6Gb/s SATA+SAS controller cards on Pogo Storage industry-standard server hardware with solid-state drive (SSD) configurations. The result is a unified storage solution based on an open source platform that delivers advanced cloud capabilities, simplified management, and enterprise storage features – key tenets for IT managers in media and entertainment, hosted service providers, and any industry that utilizes large storage volumes over iSCSI, NFS, or Fiber Channel networks.

OS NEXUS takes advantage of a solid Linux stack coupled with enterprise hardware RAID controllers from LSI as well as advanced cloud storage capabilities, including multi-tenant storage clouds, thin-provisioning, scale-on-demand, and unlimited snapshots. These key features make PogoStor™ the cost-effective, high-performance solution for a variety of workloads -- public and private clouds, storage virtualization, and digital multimedia/content delivery, backup, and archival.

“We are excited to be partnering with Pogo Storage, the leader in open storage integration, to deliver turnkey OS NEXUS OEM solutions into the marketplace," said Steven Umbehocker, CEO and Founder of OS NEXUS. “PogoStor™’s integrated products allow SMB service providers to level the playing field with larger competitors by driving down data and application deployment costs.”

“These are exciting times for Pogo Storage, and we are thrilled to expand our line of cloud storage offering," said Erik Logan, CEO of Pogo Linux. “PogoStor™ gives our customers extensive and innovative cloud storage features through OS NEXUS, such as multi-tenancy and snapshots, while also providing the performance and reliability of hardware-optimized RAID storage arrays.”

PogoStor™ configures an LSI MegaRAID 6Gb/s SATA+SAS controller card enabled with LSI CacheCade® Pro read/write SSD caching software designed to dramatically accelerate application I/O performance of HDD-based arrays by intelligently caching frequently accessed data to SSDs. This cost-optimized SSD deployment approach can deliver up to 13X more transactions per second compared to HDD-only arrays and is ideally suited to address read- and write-intensive applications such as SQL databases and OLTP.

“LSI has a long history of working with technology leaders to bring advances in innovation and performance to customers,” said Brent Blanchard, director of worldwide channel sales and marketing, LSI Corporation. “We have a strong relationship with Pogo Storage and are pleased to be the preferred RAID controller solutions for the PogoStor™ product line. We look forward to our continued work with Pogo Storage to deliver innovative flash-based storage solutions that accelerate application performance and reduce total cost of ownership."

Availability & Pricing
Starting at just under $10,000 for a base 2U server configuration, the PogoStor™ SAN+NAS managed appliance is available for immediate delivery. Potential users may configure either system with exact pricing, or download the OS NEXUS trial software (or virtual appliance) to test drive the product for 45 days.

Related posts:

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2. NEC Launches M100 Storage System for Windows, Linux and VMware Environments
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“Organizations of all shapes and sizes are scrambling to come up with new strategies to manage the massive volumes of data they’re generating,” said Terry Erdle, executive vice president, skills development, CompTIA.

“The rise in mobile computing, the shift to cloud-enabled services, a need for heightened security and a host of other factors add to the complexity of this environment, which can challenge even the most seasoned IT storage pro,” Erdle continued. “Together with SNIA we’ve developed a certification that will help individual IT workers keep pace with the changing storage landscape; and empower employers to validate the skills of their IT professionals.”

Wayne M. Adams, Chairman of the SNIA added, “The shared vision between CompTIA and the SNIA of having a comprehensive and valuable data storage certification is aimed at demonstrating IT skill competency and a credential holder’s career advancement. We are encouraging our thousands of SNIA credential holders to take the new CompTIA Storage+ Powered by SNIA certification exam to demonstrate that they are contemporary with state of the art data storage technologies, techniques and common practices.”

CompTIA and the SNIA intend to have the new certification accredited by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

CompTIA Storage+ Powered by SNIA is highly relevant for a number of professional positions in the IT industry, including data storage administrators, system administrators, system integrators, IT architects, out-sourcers, network engineers, pre-sales consultants and cloud services data and system managers.

The certification focuses on the following areas of data storage and storage networking:

• Configuration of storage systems and networks, including archive, backup and restoration technologies
• Business continuity, data availability and storage administration
• Storage system integration and correlated application workloads
• Basic troubleshooting, service levels and connectivity

The in-depth, multi-hour exam certifies that a successful candidate has the knowledge and skills required to configure basic data storage and storage networks to include archive, backup and restoration technologies. Additionally, the candidate understands the fundamentals of business continuity, application workload, capacity optimization, system integration and storage and system administration, while performing basic troubleshooting on storage related connectivity issues and referencing documentation.

CompTIA and the SNIA recommend that IT professionals have at least 12 months of hands-on storage networking experience before sitting for the exam. Complete exam objectives, sample questions, information on training materials, how to purchase exam vouchers and other information about CompTIA Storage+ Powered by SNIA are available on the CompTIA Certification Web Site.

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“MPStackware is an open-platform software product, which turns low cost, commodity disk arrays into fully featured, high value, data storage systems,” said William Oppermann, founder, MPSTOR. “In addition to supporting a wide range of host interconnects, disk protocols and media types, MPStackware supports multi-tenant storage virtualization and it federates all commands and status indicators to a single pane of management.”

MPStackware V2.10 can be downloaded from the MPSTOR website for quick and easy integration with a wide range of x86 and PPC hardware platforms and is priced accordingly, from low to high-end usage models. For a quote, please email info@mpstor.com. Because it is designed with open application and management APIs, MPStackware also integrates easily with third party storage software applications.

“It’s hard to imagine a storage software platform that offers more flexibility, freedom and value than MPStackware,” said Stu Fisher, vice president, U.S. Sales and Business Development, MPSTOR. “When combined with MPSTOR’s expertise and customer-focused support, MPStackware offers system integrators and OEMs an excellent base on which to design and build differentiated storage solutions.”

For data centers or enterprises who wish to offer a reliable, massively scalable and price competitive cloud computing service, MPSTOR has also leveraged MPStackware to vertically integrate with OpenStackTM, an open-source cloud operating system. The result is OrkestraTM, operationally efficient cloud computing software platform that also provides a means of accurately tracking and charging end users for resources they consume.

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“NexGen Storage is an excellent vendor for the channel – easy to work with and channel-savvy, with a proven track record of executing flexible programs that create profitable business opportunities for partners,” said Charles Bass, vice president, vendor relations and strategic accounts for Promark Technology. “NexGen’s shared storage solutions are designed for business critical virtualization environments and leverage cutting-edge technologies such as unique QoS capabilities while simultaneously reducing storage cost per gigabyte, cost per IOP and data center footprint. We are pleased to collaborate with NexGen to offer these advantages to our partners and their customers.”

The NexGen PAID Partner Program, which stands for Profit, Advantage, Insight and Deals, is designed to ensure channel partner success. It offers best in class margin opportunities, simple 1-click deal registration, service revenue opportunities and an easy-to-use partner portal that includes competitive intelligence, opportunity management and a host of sales tools, plus demand generation events and programs. As a 100-percent channel organization, NexGen Storage sells its systems exclusively through reseller partners.

“NexGen is committed to the success and profitability of its channel partners, and we are excited to team with Promark Technology to bring some of the industry’s most innovative storage technologies to market,” said Rick Merlo, vice president of sales, NexGen Storage. “Promark Technology’s expertise and extensive network of leading storage and virtualization resellers make it an ideal partner to deliver our solutions.”

Recently named a ‘Hot Storage Start-up’ by InfoStor and a ‘Top Five Storage Company to Watch’ by Network World, NexGen storage systems deliver the industry’s first solid state storage system with QoS designed for business critical virtualization. The NexGen n5 Storage System seamlessly integrates an arsenal of cutting-edge technologies, including PCIe solid state and patent-pending performance Quality of Service, Dynamic Data Placement and Phased Data Reduction, to deliver new levels of shared storage control and efficiency. With NexGen’s storage systems, organizations can efficiently extend the benefits of virtualization throughout their entire environment – including their most demanding business critical applications and virtual desktops (VDI).

NexGen’s n5 Storage Systems are available immediately from Promark Technology through its extensive channel distribution network. For additional information on Promark Technology or to purchase a NexGen storage solution, please contact Promark Technology at info@promarktech.com or 800-634-0255.

NexGen Storage will be participating in channel briefings with Promark in Las Vegas, NV on February 14-15, 2012 during VMware Partner Exchange.

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IceWEB's Model 6000-HR provides its enterprise class capabilities with a highly-redundant dual-controller configuration that scales to 224TBs with affordable disk shelves, saving the customer the expense of adding controllers to just add capacity. The flexible unified data storage array supports SSD's, ENT SAS and MDL SAS drives. With VMware integration, IceWEB's unified data storage systems support both file and block data, enabling cloud computing providers to dramatically reduce the amount of hardware and physical storage they need to support a growing and diverse customer base – reducing costs and ultimately preserving margins.

According to Enterprise Strategy Group, 47% of storage administrators surveyed planned to deploy unified data storage, due to the inherent cost savings attained through reduced power, cooling, management and optimized storage utilization. Through its proprietary software technology, IceWEB's unified data storage systems optimize storage utilization through thin provisioning, linked clones, inline compression and inline block deduplication, saving up to 90% of storage costs.

"The culmination of cloud and virtualization technologies in mid-market organizations has added unnecessary complexity to these environments," said John R. Signorello, IceWEB's CEO. "IceWEB's unified data storage arrays dramatically simplify these environments by enabling cloud and virtualized environments to standardize on a single, unified platform for both block and file data, while simultaneously leveraging thin provisioning to get the most out of deployed storage capacity throughout the data center. These capabilities and performance requirements have been unserved by traditional storage vendors at a price point suitable for mid-market organizations. IceWEB's unified data storage systems satisfy that need, as demonstrated by today's announcement."

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Customer Benefits:

Reduced Costs - EMC information infrastructure solutions coupled with VMware vSphere enabled Burris to save $1 million by virtualizing and consolidating its server footprint as it moves to the cloud.

Return on Investment - Burris has doubled its storage capacity since recently implementing VMAX® with zero increase to its power and cooling costs.

Customer Challenges:Burris' rapid business expansion and modernization of its warehousing management infrastructure doubled its storage requirements over 24 months. Burris needed to upgrade its storage infrastructure to deliver increased performance and data availability to better manage its rapid business expansion and explosive data growth. The company's modernized applications - including its Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) - required higher performance and reliability.

To better manage its growth opportunity, Burris modernized its data center by replacing its legacy enterprise storage solution with VMAX to compliment its EMC unified storage. Burris has also pursued an aggressive virtualization strategy using VMware vSphere, consolidating 80 applications from 70 physical servers onto just six servers over a two-year period.

Customer Quotes:

Bill Poore, Director of Infrastructure, Burris Logistics

"Burris prides itself on something we call 'wow service'-- going above and beyond our customers' expectations. VMAX fits perfectly into that strategic focus. It has met our six-9's uptime goal while delivering outstanding performance and reducing our costs. These attributes make a significant difference in our business."

"Since implementing VMAX, we've doubled our storage capacity without increasing our power and cooling usage. Having a mix of Flash, Fibre Channel and SATA drives in a single system gives us agility to respond to changing business demands and continue to grow without sacrificing performance or availability. In addition, our total cost of ownership savings is well in excess of $1 million as a result of virtualizing and consolidating our server footprint."

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The Fluid Data architecture, designed to enable customers to manage more information more effectively, is strengthened today with new offerings that include Dell’s first deduplication backup appliance that integrates intellectual property from the Ocarina acquisition; a major software release for Compellent storage arrays; a new storage optimization solution for Microsoft SharePoint; and broader support for Dell Force10, PowerConnect and Brocade storage networking solutions.

“Today’s IT organizations are moving faster than ever down a road that is constantly changing. That’s why their data needs to be as dynamic as their business,” said Darren Thomas, vice president and general manager, Dell Enterprise Storage. “With Dell’s new primary, archive and backup storage solutions, the Dell Fluid Data architecture delivers the storage intelligence customers need to deal with a sea of constant IT change without driving up costs, wasting time or continually replacing infrastructure.”

New Dell DR4000 Storage Platform with Deduplication and Compression

Customers continue to augment or replace traditional backup and recovery environments with disk-based solutions for their speed, access and reliability.

The DR4000 combines the performance and reliability of disk-based backup with innovative deduplication and compression capabilities from Dell’s Ocarina Networks acquisition. These capabilities eliminate multiple copies of the same data and enable customers to keep more data online longer and readily available in the event of a disaster or data loss.

By keeping data online for weeks or even months before moving it to archive storage, customers can more easily locate and restore important data, creating new efficiencies and helping to reduce the total cost of ownership for their storage infrastructure.

The DR4000 is ideal for small- and medium-sized organizations as well as remote offices of large enterprises in need of a disk-based backup solution that can:

• Eliminate redundant copies of data by decreasing disk capacity requirements up to 15 times;
• Reduce dependence on tape backup;
• Reduce bandwidth requirements for data transfer by up to 15 times;
• Reduce backup storage costs to as low as $0.25/GB list pricing; and
• Reduce the footprint of backup delivering power and cooling savings in the datacenter.

The DR4000, available in 40TB, 81TB or 135TB effective storage capacities in a single appliance, features inline deduplication and compression, deduplicated replication, advanced data protection, and non-disruptive deployment, certified with leading backup software applications.

In addition to excellent data reduction capabilities, the DR4000 can reduce storage costs over time through an all-inclusive software licensing model that allows customers to leverage current and future product capabilities of the DR4000 without incurring additional licensing costs.

New Dell Compellent Storage Center 6.0

The new Dell Compellent Storage Center 6.0 software includes new 64-bit support that doubles memory size to improve performance and scale. With its advanced tiering, thin provisioning and replication features, the modular design of the Dell Compellent SAN enables data centers to improve cost savings by upgrading to the new firmware and implement future product releases without requiring a rip-and-replace process. The new Dell Compellent firmware enables customers to take advantage of future Compellent software advancements while improving performance with existing solutions.

Storage Center 6.0 also expands Dell and VMware’s long-standing integration and engineering collaboration to help customers accelerate their move to dynamic data centers and cloud computing environments. Together, Dell and VMware provide the core framework for a virtualized data center and storage solutions that meet joint customer needs. Extending its existing Dell EqualLogic and PowerVault application integration for VMware vSphere 5®, Dell today introduced new VMware specific enhancements for Dell Compellent storage customers including:

• Dell Compellent VMware vSphere™ Storage APIs for Array Integration offers full copy offload and hardware-assisted locking features that extend Compellent’s existing support for block zeroing. These features speed deployment of virtual machines up to 40 percent faster*, free up network and hosting resources and can improve storage performance for data volumes shared by multiple virtual machines.
• Dell Compellent Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) for Site Recovery Manager 5 is available for download with support for new SRM 5 features such as automated failback from a disaster and new work flows for planned migration and downtime. Dell Compellent continues its OEM relationship with VMware for SRM 5, allowing all disaster recovery hardware and software support to be provided by the Dell Compellent Copilot support organization.
• Dell Compellent vSphere 5 Client Plug-In and Enterprise Manager-vSphere 5 Integration allows VMware software users to efficiently manage Compellent virtualized pools of storage resources from either the VMware vSphere 5 or Compellent Enterprise Manager console, giving the ability to reduce administration time.

New Dell Solution for Microsoft SharePoint Infrastructure Optimization

Dell also announced a comprehensive solution to help customers optimize their Microsoft SharePoint infrastructure through improved data and storage management. The New Dell Solution for Microsoft SharePoint Infrastructure Optimization consists of Dell DX storage, Dell Microsoft SharePoint assessment, design, and deployment services and AvePoint® DocAve® software. The offering delivers comprehensive and integrated solutions for SharePoint lifecycle management and migration, resulting in improved capacity utilization, performance, business continuity and compliance.

The Dell solution addresses three key sets of customer challenges:

• Proactive capacity planning and management, to drive better storage efficiency and up to 40 percent faster application performance
• Business continuity to ensure consistent backups of the entire SharePoint infrastructure improving backup up to 29 times and recovery times up to 32 times; and
• Flexible and scalable data governance through automated archiving.

Expanded Support for Dell Force10, Dell PowerConnect and Brocade Storage Networking Solutions

Dell is focused on speeding storage deployment, increasing performance and simplifying administration through improved interoperability with Dell Force10 and Dell PowerConnect Ethernet solutions and Brocade 16Gb Fibre Channel switches.

Providing more choice to EqualLogic users, Dell has added the Dell Force10 S4810 10Gb Ethernet switch and the deep-buffer S60 1Gb/10Gb Ethernet switches to the validated component list. EqualLogic customers can also reduce deployment time with auto-recognition and auto-configuration features delivered in select Dell PowerConnect switches.

To help automate Compellent array implementations, the Dell PowerConnect 8024 10Gb switches and M8024-k Blade IO modules provide technology that can reduce multi-step switch configuration to a single command.

By combining the Dell Fluid Data architecture with Brocade's 16Gb Fibre Channel infrastructure, Dell Compellent customers can realize flexibility, reliability and simplicity for their SAN environments to support next-generation applications and services within highly-virtualized, cloud-optimized environments. The Brocade DCX 8510 is a powerful SAN backbone that simplifies scale-out network design to reduce network complexity, management, and costs, while helping maximize overall port density and space utilization through massive consolidation of legacy SANs. The Brocade 6510 switch provides exceptional price/performance value and enables “pay-as-you-grow” scalability with 24 to 48 ports for on-demand flexibility. Both will be available from Dell this month and are certified for Compellent arrays.

Availability:

• The Dell DR4000 disk-based backup appliance with deduplication will be available in Q1.
• The Compellent Storage Center 6.0 software will be available in Q1.
• The Dell Infrastructure Optimization Solution for Microsoft SharePoint will be available in January in the U.S. and in EMEA later in Q1 2012.
• The Brocade 6510 and Brocade DCX 8510 data center switches will be available in January.
• The Dell Force10 S4810 10Gb Ethernet switch and the deep-buffer S60 1Gb/10Gb Ethernet switches for EqualLogic are currently available.
• The Dell PowerConnect 8024 10Gb switches and M8024-k Blade IO modules are currently available.

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The numerous trends and forces that are driving SSD adoption include:

• Revenue from SSD sales to enterprises is growing, due largely to SSDs’ performance advantages and lower costs compared to HDDs.
• Storage efficiency gap is increasing between SSD and HDD technology.
• High availability and data protection advancements are enhancing SSD value.
• Legacy SAN storage is limited in handling today’s large, powerful servers.
• SSDs make the most sense for storage virtualization.
• Innovations such as Kaminario’s SPEAR technology are increasingly generating more speed and reliability from MLC Flash and at less cost than SLC Flash.

Golan’s article underscores:

“If you measure IOPS by cost today, SSD storage already wins hands down. Expect hardware and software innovations this year to ratchet up SSD value even further. Also, don’t forget to factor physical and environmental cost savings when comparing SSDs versus HDDs. SSDs can reduce your data center heating and cooling costs and your space requirements.”

View the I/O Storm blog article, “Get Ready to Kick Some Flash: 2012 Promises to Be the Year of the SSD.”

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"This transaction is an important step in OCZ's enterprise solid state drive strategy," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology Group. "It significantly enhances the ability for customers to increase datacenter performance and efficiency by putting more virtual machines (VM) on a server without slowing down the VM's ability to access stored data, thus substantially lowering the overall cost of deployment. SANRAD's VXL has the ability to optimize caching strategies based on the application and support for VMware's vMotion, which sets the solution apart from others in the industry, allowing enterprises to finally realize the benefit of running a single unified virtualized environment," concluded Mr. Petersen.

"SANRAD's software is a wonderful complement to OCZ's Flash technology," said Oded Ilan, CEO of SANRAD Inc. "We are excited with the opportunity created by this unique combination between storage virtualization, caching and PCIe Flash storage. We are proud to join the OCZ development team and to establish its design center in Israel."

SANRAD was founded in 2000 and its R&D center is based in Tel Aviv, Israel. SANRAD currently sells its line of flash caching and virtualization software and hardware to storage and networking OEMs such as NEXSAN and Brocade as well as directly to the enterprise through its network of Value Added Resellers.

SANRAD transforms storage access in virtualized environments with NAND flash. Its technology allows data centers to fully leverage their flash based storage investments, extending the lifespan of the storage infrastructure and maximizing efficiency. Virtualized data centers gain the benefits of NAND flash performance while retaining the key benefits of server virtualization such as vMotion, high availability, and disaster recovery.

SANRAD's virtualization software and solutions are VMware, Microsoft, and Citrix certified and are expected to accelerate the adoption of OCZ's PCIe-based flash storage solutions in virtualized environments. These solutions include:

SANRAD's VXL software delivers SANRAD's flash caching and virtualization technology for VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix Xen into server virtualization platforms. VXL software enables efficient dynamic distribution of host-based flash resources to guest virtual machines via its application optimized cache engine. The VXL SCSI connectivity enables support of most modern operating systems including all variants of Windows, FreeBSD, Solaris and Linux servers, in contrast to other caching solutions which require an installation of an agent or driver on each VM.

VXL supports key enterprise-class storage datacenter requirements such as QoS, high availability clustering, mirroring, WAN replication, snapshots and multiple storage virtualization functions. Unlike many other virtualization and caching algorithms, VXL guarantees complete cache migration via vMotion, as cached data is treated as a virtualized storage entity and can be dynamically migrated between ESX servers along with the virtual volumes without performance loss and without powering down the server, interrupting service of the VMs.

SANRAD's StoragePro software provides comprehensive remote storage management and virtualization services and ensures simple, efficient use of storage resources for numerous connected servers. Its open, heterogeneous system architecture provides complete storage flexibility, enabling IT managers to manage a single virtual pool of storage which is critical in today's enterprise environments.

The aggregate purchase price of the acquisition was $15 million comprised of approximately 2.1 million shares of OCZ common stock that was issued on closing.

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