Deni Connor

Emulex Corp. and Brocade Communications Systems Inc. are announcing what are expected to be the industry's first 4G-bit/sec Fibre Channel products that will let users run applications and back up data faster on their storage-area networks.

The installation and configuration of storage-area network technology has gotten simpler as companies such as Dell Inc. and QLogic Corp. have begun selling low-cost, easy-to-install SAN equipment and software, users say.

Symantec Corp., EMC Corp. and start-up Permabit Inc. this week announced software that helps customers with the replication, migration, and backup and recovery of data.

Hitachi Data Systems Corp. announced this week a high-end storage array that runs long-promised data pooling and replication software that will let users support multi-vendor storage systems from one interface.

Hitachi Data Systems Corp. is expected to roll out a high-end storage array that runs long-promised data pooling and replication software that will let users support multi-vendor storage systems from one interface.

Times were bad

Cisco Systems Inc.'s plans to acquire Actona Technologies Inc. is a move to help users link remote enterprise resources with corporate storage and file serving.

Novell Inc. announced Tuesday that it is shipping a connector for Microsoft Corp. Exchange Server that allows users of its Linux e-mail package Evolution to access Exchange from a Linux desktop.