Windows Storage Solution Updates at SNW

·         Cisco introduced the WAAS WAE 674 Appliance that provides local application hosting and acceleration of centralized data center applications.  The Cisco WAAS WAE-674 can be upgraded with embedded virtualization software to support “virtual blades” for hosting off-the-shelf applications, beginning with Windows Server 2008. 

·         AMD announced availability of the industry’s first Reference Design Kit (RDK) for the Storage Bridge Bay (SBB) 2.0 Specification.  The RDK supports Network Attached Storage (NAS), Storage Area Networks (SANs), Unified Storage systems, as well as all major interface connectivity options including GigE, 10GigE, Fibre Channel, and Infiniband.  SBB 2.0 and the Windows Storage Server platform will help promote affordable enterprise class storage functionality to customers of all sizes.

·         Fujitsu debuted an easy-to-install network attached storage (NAS) appliance for small to medium businesses called F-NAS.  Based on Windows, F-NAS features Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003 (WUDSS) and allows both file and block-level data to be transferred over Ethernet networks.  F-NAS also consolidates storage under a single Microsoft Management Console (MMC), simplifying the management of storage resources.

·         emBoot delivered winBoot/i v2.5, an important update to its iSCSI boot solution for Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008, that utilizes Microsoft’s iSCSI architecture to allow the booting of any Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 devices using existing low-cost Ethernet adapters versus substantially more expensive host bus adapters (HBAs).