Serial ATA, which is intended to provide high reliability and performance features similar to more expensive SCSI and Fibre Channel drives, is expected to ramp quickly in the next few years. IDC forecasts that by 2006, Serial ATA will represent nearly half of all enterprise disk drives shipped. This week Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) introduced the 36-GByte Raptor, which the company claims is the first "enterprise-class" Serial ATA drive (see Western Digital Hatches Raptor).
But is 3ware just chasing the flavor of the month? No, says Pairman: Unlike its attempt to deliver IP storage systems -- well before the iSCSI specification was even close to being completed -- there's much more momentum behind Serial ATA.
"There's a real wave we're riding instead of having to swim upstream," she says. [Ed. note: thereby winning Byte and Switch's award for best mixed metaphor of the week!]
Of course, Serial ATA in the enterprise space has yet to take hold. And even once it does, 3ware will have to go toe-to-toe with larger, more established players, including Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), Adaptec Inc. (Nasdaq: ADPT), and Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (Nasdaq: MRVL).
But 3ware has already accumulated a lot of valuable intellectual property and expertise in this area, Pairman says. "If you've been in the RAID business, you know there's value in the technology," she says. "Having been around for five years gives us a huge lead." The "3" part of 3ware, by the way, is derived from hardware, firmware, and software -- each of which must be tightly integrated in a RAID controller.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
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