Nexsan pools low-cost storage

Building its case that you don't have to rely on expensive Fibre Channel technology to tap large pools of storage, Nexsan Technologies Ltd. is now shipping a turnkey appliance that lets customers use an Ethernet network to access up to 15 of its low-priced storage arrays.

Nexsan's new Veriture iP appliance uses SCSI over IP, or iSCSI, to send storage traffic over a general-purpose local-area network, instead of building a costly Fibre Channel storage network for the task.

On top of providing connectivity, software on the Veriture iP enables administrators to take the multiple storage arrays connected to it and create a centrally managed, virtual pool of up to 25 terabytes of storage. This can then be carved up on the fly to provide subsets of storage capacity for different departments, applications or operating systems, said Diamond Lauffin, senior executive vice president of Nexsan.

Nexsan's main product is the InfiniSAN ATAboy2 disk array, which uses Advanced Technology Attachment hard drives from the PC world instead of the more expensive SCSI or Fibre Channel disks used in high-end systems. Veriture iP, which is built with technology from StoneFly Networks Inc., starts at $7,995.

In other news, Nexsan's products are now available from Northrop Grumman Information Technology through NASA's Scientific and Engineering Workstation Procurement III contract.