News

posted on 16 June 2008 12:02

Seanodes has enbled its Exanodes software to run as a virtual machine inside VMware and turn the VMware server's disks into a storage-area network resource, catching up with LeftHand Networks and its VSA appliance.

Exanodes combines the direct-attached storage (DAS) of servers into a SAN resource, eliminating, Seanodes says, the need for a separate physical SAN resource.

Marc Staimer, Dragon Slayer Consulting's president, said: “Seanodes uniquely provides virtual server hypervisors the ability to utilize the internal and external direct attached storage to itself and other virtual servers as a virtualized SAN without the requisite cost and complexity of a 'physical' SAN. The end result is a great deal simpler, higher performing, lower cost storage that more perfectly aligns with the promise of server virtualization.”

Saenodes says that Exanodes VM Edition has its installation, configuration and deployment measured in minutes rather than days for typical SAN deployments. It requires no target management, no additional hardware, no need for external SAN storage or fabrics and no specific storage competencies.

Exanodes offers highly available reliability through catastrophic fault tolerance that includes self-healing capabilities and less than 40-minutes to rebuild a 1TB disk.

Jacques Baldinger, Seanodes' CEO, said: “We are calling our Exanodes VM Edition ‘Server Virtualization Storage Nirvana’ because its ability to transform enterprise storage into something that is not limiting in nature but rather one filled with new expectations and one that is redefining storage metrics as we previously knew them. By approaching the issues of cost efficiency, simplicity and performance from an entirely new way of thinking, we are providing companies with a new paradigm in storage and empowering them to take advantage of a fully virtualized and consolidated infrastructure that enables complete utilization of commoditized application Servers.“

Sun's open source Comstar software also turns a host server's DAS into SAN storage.

Pricing for Exanodes VM Edition starts at $500 per terabyte and will be available through Seanodes’ network of selected System Integrators beginning now.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}