News
Compaq Virtually Ventures out with VersaStor
- By Scott Bekker
- June 06, 2000
The past few years has seen the arrival of Virtual Desktops, Virtual Communities, and even Virtual Reality - now administrators should brace themselves for virtual storage. Today, Compaq Computer Corp. veered into the virtual world by unveiling VersaStor their new line of storage pooling and virtualization products.
VersaStor allows administrators to link virtual volumes in a SAN pool with specific systems, allowing them to pool all of their storage investments into a single pool. VersaStor creates a virtual link between a system and a storage volume, making it seem that the volume, which on a SAN, is actually attached to the system.
Virtualization allows users to optimize their storage investment. When users attach storage to a specific system, if the storage device is too large, the unused space will be wasted. In a pool, the extra space can be allocated to other systems.
Furthermore, storage pooling can simplify backup and recovery. Although the pool consists of many different volumes, it can be treated as a single unit for backup, making the mundane, yet essential, task a little less painful.
VersaStor consists of three components: VersaStor Management Software, VersaStor Appliances, and VersaStor Agent Technology. VersaStor Management Software enables the pooling and virtualization of devices. VersaStor Appliances are hardware for SANs. Finally VersaStor Agent Technology kits will allow third party vendors integrate their products into a VersaStor SAN.
Contact Compaq, http://www.compaq.com/storage/index.html.
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.