Melville, N.Y.-based network storage infrastructure software provider FalconStor Software Inc. recently announced new additions to its end-to-end network availability solutions portfolio, including the latest version of IPStor and a new solution in NIC Express.
Based on technology from FalconStor’s recent acquisition of network software and service provider IP Metrics Software, the new client and server options for FalconStor’s flagship product IPStor enhance availability on storage area networks (SANs). IPStor is complemented by the enterprise and standard edition of NIC Express, providing high network availability on the LAN.
NIC Express Enterprise Edition and the DynaPath/IP option to IPStor both utilize advanced failover technology developed by IP Metrics to monitor network traffic as data passes between servers and workstations, said FalconStor. The products’ advanced peering capability identify the nature and location of faults anywhere on the network, the company said.
Back-end storage should not be the only method of ensuring data availability, said Wayne Lam, FalconStor vice-president. Enterprises require not only end-to-end availability from the storage server to the storage appliance but also between the appliance and the application server, Lam said, adding that both IPStor and NIC Express offer high availability and business continuity from the storage servers to the application servers all the way up to the workstation.
“What NIC Express can do is peer really deep into the networking infrastructure card and triangulate what exactly is the fault and then route around the fault automatically with minimum packet loss.…Automation is really the value,” Lam said. The DynaPath/IP and the IP Trunking options for the IPStor software suite offer a “high availability, no single point of failure” for the network, Lam added.
Steve Kedem, senior network engineer for New York-based law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, said NIC Express provides “increased availability for our business-critical data, while allowing us to realize storage management benefits that have been difficult to achieve otherwise.” Kadem added that the solution offers a “better way” to manage storage resources while protecting valuable business data.
Servers and storage research manager Alan Freedman at IDC Canada Ltd. in Toronto said, “It’s good to see that FalconStor is concentrating on the features and benefits that customers are going to get – customers are looking for solutions that make their lives easier. Rather than having the absolute, most efficient data storage network, customers are looking for ease of use and single point of manageability. That’s what FalconStor has addressed with the updates to their product,” Freedman said.
“In the past where disaster recovery or high availability was thought of as a nice-to-have, now it’s more of a strategic priority – while companies may not be jumping and snapping up solutions real quickly, it’s in the strategic plan and it’s something that must get done,” Freedman said.
IPStor, NIC Express Standard Edition and NIC Express Enterprise Edition are available now. Pricing for the products was not available at press time. FalconStor can be found at http://www.falconstor.com.