Sun Microsystems Inc. and Veritas Software Corp. are entering the stand-alone storage market with a new product to provide one of the storage industry’s most flexible network attached storage (NAS) solutions designed for broad distribution with Sun’s iForce Channel Development Providers — GE Access and MOCA.
The combination of Sun’s StorEdge T3 array and Sun’s Enterprise and workgroup servers running on the Solaris 8 Operating Environment, coupled with Veritas Software’s new Veritas ServPoint appliance software for NAS, removes the constraint inherent in today’s self-contained NAS appliances, transforming the NAS infrastructure from a storage repository to a strategic business enabler to help maximize the value and impact of data, officials from both companies said.
The collaboration minimizes risk in NAS deployment with proven enterprise-class technology and a delivery paradigm enabling the end-user to tailor the solution to their unique data access and protection requirements. The solution extends NAS to include critical high availability and data protection functionality — facilitating rapid access, sharing, replication and manipulation of data in critical applications — at every level of the business environment.
The joint solution leverages the highly skilled network of leading channel partners cultivated by GE Access and MOCA to permit end-user freedom of choice in tailoring the solution and support to their specific data availability needs. Together with the support infrastructure provided by Sun and Veritas Software, the combined initiative offers customers a superior cost-effective storage solution, officials said.
GE Access and MOCA are established Veritas Software and Sun partners that have built a business upon the companies’ respective products. The collective offering significantly contributes to the value of the comprehensive solution. Customers can take advantage of resources offered, thus reducing the cost of implementing network attached storage solutions. In addition, GE Access and MOCA are offering their value-added resellers an opportunity to capitalize on the multi-billion dollar appliance market.
“As data centers continue to expand, our goal is to simplify the customer’s change management processes in a cost-effective way,” said Tom Kuni, President, Sales Strategies, Inc. “Today, Sun and Veritas’ channel partners are delivering a high, data availability solution with support services that enable rapid NAS solution deployment. The manageability and performance of the solution also integrate backup, clustering, replication and storage management functionality critical to managing data center infrastructure solutions.”
Goldman, Sachs analysts Anne M. Meisner and Robert D. Boroujerdi liked the announcement so much that they wrote it up in an investment research note. “We view the announcement positively as it reinforces Veritas’s NAS strategy, as well as the strength of the company’s relationship with Sun,” the analysts wrote.
