Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/256420
Storage Solutions • March 2013 • 13 SOFIA, BULGARIA — Tiger Technology (www.tiger-tech- nology.com), which for the past 10 years has been providing SAN management software, has decided to take more control over their product by off ering an integrated software/hardware appliance. "When building a SAN, you typically have to rely on the reseller or the end- users to put together the solution," says director of sales, Bernard Lamborelle, "but certain features are hard to implement when you are only controlling the software." Tiger has begun quietly shipping the new Tbox, which they say off ers everything a typical post house would look for in a shared storage solution, including ease of use. "Post facilities are in a unique position in terms of storage requirement — they have a huge need for capacity and performance but little IT expertise, un- like bigger companies with dedicated staff . These are of- ten a few guys in a shop producing content, they don't have the time." Tbox uses standard components for the hardware and add a special sauce based on metaSAN and meta- LAN technology. It also integrates Fibre Channel and 1/10GbE (they use both 1GbE and 10GbE). "So it's all the standards that people want to use, plus Fibre is more often used for 2K and 4K, while 1/10GbE is becoming in- creasingly aff ordable. It also includes auto-defragmen- tation of the fi le system that automatically gets to work when it senses lack of activity. There are options available based on amount of stor- age or connectivity users require. The goal, says Lambo- relle, was to keep it as simple as possible for the user — connect the storage to your computer, download and install the driver, and you are ready to collaborate. None of the complexity that is associated with SAN. Users can connect up to 16 clients directly on the box but can add a switch for as many as needed. Tiger em- phasizes, there are no software licenses to manage. At NAB, the company will show how multiple Tboxes can be unifi ed in a single storage pool. Tiger has also been working with IBM and will be showcasing how LTFS-based LTO tape libraries can participate in a tiered- based storage solution using Tiger's CluStore, so all con- tent looks like one logical volume. Their current workfl ow app, ProjectStore, gives edi- tors the option of working on a large volume or to cre- ate virtual workspaces that are private and allow the creator control of who sees the content and what con- tent can be shared. It supports Avid bin locking. Version 3 introduces "storage content awareness," so if you are working on an NLE from Avid, Apple or Adobe, Tbox will automatically recognize fi les, how the project was built and what clips are being used and for what project. Lamborelle refers to it as a sort of MiniMAM. Tbox pricing varies between low $20K to mid $40K , depending on capacity (16TB-64TB) and connectivity (all models equipped with 8x 1GbE, and then add up to 4x 10GbE or up to 8x FC or a mix). By Randi Altman Tiger adds hardware to its storage solution STORAGE SOLUTIONS EMC's Isilon scale-out NAS now supports 4TB HOPLINTON, MA — EMC Isilon has further extended the benefi ts of its scale-out NAS solutions in archival storage with new support for 4TB drive technology. This new support enables a single Isilon volume to scale up to 20 pet- abytes, delivering 33 percent more capacity per rack and using 30 per- cent less power per rack. Support for 4TB drives also permits Isilon to boost resilience at scale with faster rebuild times for failed drives and superior data protection for simplifi ed management of archive data. EMC has also made EMC's Syncplicity cloud-based online file sharing service for beta, with the option for customers to use ei- ther Isilon scale-out NAS or Atmos object-based storage for stor- ing files on-premise or the cloud. This approach gives IT new op- tions for managing files and more control over where managed files reside while offering users a secure, easy-to-use solution for file sync and sharing across all of their computers and devices. Storage Supplement 2013RAV10FINAL READ.indd 13 2/28/13 8:44 AM