News
New Compaq SAN Lab to Accelerate Interoperability
Compaq Computer Corp. will open a 22,000-square foot facility in Colorado Springs, Colo., that will house the company's most advanced lab for testing and qualifying network storage interoperability. The facility will support enterprise storage initiatives announced by Compaq, including Open SAN technology and the recently announced alliance with IBM Corp.
"The Enterprise Storage Customer Center (ESCC) is evidence of Compaq's focused commitment to deliver the Open SAN," said Howard Elias, vice president and general manager of Compaq Storage Products Group. "It will be used to extend coordinated interoperability testing between major storage companies, and will provide training for IT professionals in the deployment and use of advanced enterprise storage technologies."
The mission of the Compaq ESCC is developing virtualized Open SAN technology, based on VersaStor, which will allow computers and storage devices from different makers to be networked together for reliable storage and retrieval.
The ESCC is composed of a Network Storage Interoperability Lab, a Customer Training Center, and an Executive Briefing Center. Some of the Interoperability Lab's objectives include showing how an Open SAN works with real business applications; showing how a large number of disparate storage systems can be configured and managed from a single location; and developing and demonstrating advanced SAN-based data protection and recovery capabilities.
The Customer Training Center will provide in-depth training of IT professionals in networked storage implementation.
The ESCC will complement the Storage Networking Technology Center, announced earlier this year by the Storage Networking Industry Association.