The maturation of Serial ATA technology and its increasing adoption rate in mid-level SANs means that while the capacity of SATA disk drives continues to rise, the cost per megabyte keeps going down. Drive performance and reliability are still better when used with Fibre channel and/or SCSI technology, but even this fact hasn't kept SATA from popping up in mid-level enterprise SANs at a more frequent rate than in years past.
One device that has emerged in this space due to its cost-effectiveness and above-average performance is nStor's NexStor 4700 Serial ATA storage solution.
The NexStor 4700 is a proprietary SATA system, manufactured entirely by nStor. This is the company's first offering in the SATA market space. However, this is not a new technology--the 4700's design has been in existence for about four years.
The device enables SATA storage devices to connect to servers using any of four technology options: Fibre to Fibre, SCSI to SCSI, Fibre to SATA and/or SCSI to SATA.
The unit can be integrated into just about any network infrastructure. The NexStor 4700 is compatible with Windows, Linux, Sun, and Macintosh platforms.
The unit comes in a 2U form factor and houses 12 horizontal disk drives protected by a single front bezel. Through the bezel, administrators can view the unit's control LEDs. The unit features a cableless design, allowing the SATA drives to talk to the SATA controller without using any cables. The back of the unit features two Fibre channel ports.
The nStor channel program places all resellers into a single level. Partners are offered competetive pricing to assist in making deals. Marketing and sales support is provided, including marketing materials, joint marketing and sales opportunities, protected registered opportunities, preferential pricing, joint promotional opportunities, lead generation, and product roadmap briefings. NStor offers both sales and technical training. The company did not disclose average solution provider margins. The NexStor starts at $9000 and is covered by a 3 year warranty.
Bob Friday, Chief AI Officer for Juniper Networks, explains how the advanced technology is transforming operations.
Contact center leaders from 8x8, Awaken Intelligence, and 360insight discuss the importance of agent experience.
AI may force enterprises to rewire parts of their data centers so they are fully optimized to run such workloads. The question is do you use Ethernet or InfiniBand?
