IBM/Compaq Alliance Announces First Storage Product
The first open storage product of the IBM and Compaq alliance -- the Modular Storage Server -- will be available later in September.The alliance was made public July 6. Since then, IBM has completed training of its storage sales force and storage networking architects, plus many of its Business Partners. Customers will now be able to deploy open storage networking solutions using both IBM and Compaq products.IBM also has announced availability of 36 gigabyte 10,000 RPM disk drives for its "Shark" Enterprise Storage Server, which can result in up to a 30 percent performance improvement. And, it announced availability of the IBM FastT200 Storage Server, an entry level server for the NT marketplace, featuring two one gigabit per second Fibre Channel connections.Initially supporting IBM Netfinity servers, the FastT200 will support Compaq and other Intel-based servers as well as UNIX, NetWare and Linux-based platforms. The Modular Storage Server will be available Sept. 29. The FastT200 will be available Sept. 12.