Dot Hill Applies SAN Appliance
Storage Area Networks (SANs) are often considered the domain of enterprises with vast resources and staff, but a storage vendor hopes to make SANs accessible to the midrange with a new appliance. Dot Hill Systems Corp. has introduced a storage appliance that can manage both IP and Fibre Channel networks.
Dot Hill's SANnet Axis is a line of appliance servers designed to handle routine storage tasks. As an all-in-one solution, it combines features needed to create a SAN or manage NAS devices, simplifying storage tasks. It sits as a gateway to the SAN, managing storage processes.
SANnet's combined functionality includes Storage Resource Management, Logical Volume Management, storage-to-IP routing and snapshotting. It allows administrators to get the maximum benefit out of storage investments by showing how assets are used and managing the future use of drives and arrays.
Adminstrators can set policies for managing storage—if an application uses too much space it can set alerts. It can also show past trends in storage utilization to accurately gauge future storage needs. SANnet Axis can also provide file-and-print services, and administrators can also be alerted if a department is using too much space or if the allocated space is insufficient.