Weiss Selects Xiotech

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. -- Xiotech Corporation today announced that Jupiter, Fla.-based Weiss Group Inc. purchased Xiotech's new Magnitude 750 storage system. Leveraging Xiotech’s new ICON Manager software, the iSCSI-based Magnitude 750 provides the financial and investment services organization with cost effective, easy-to-manage storage.

ICON Manager, was a key driver in Weiss' selection process. The software allows storage to be managed in the context of servers and applications, allowing consolidation and simplification of provisioning and management tasks from a single console. It supports several operating systems, including Weiss' Linux-based system, as well as Microsoft Windows 2003, Novell NetWare and VMware ESX Server.

"We looked at several SAN management interfaces and the Magnitude 750’s ICON Manager stood out above the rest," said James Santillo, systems administrator, Weiss Group. "The interface works with our Linux based system and simplifies the process for provisioning and expanding storage to servers as needed, greatly reducing the administrative time spent moving data around as storage demands change."

Operating a five-year-old storage system that only supported Fibre Channel, Weiss Group determined it needed a new storage system that would allow it to use more familiar technologies like iSCSI to simplify storage administration and minimize costs. After evaluating a number of vendor offerings, Weiss Group selected the Xiotech® Magnitude 750 system.

"With the advancements in iSCSI technology, Magnitude 750 will provide us with high data availability and business continuity," added Santillo. "Because our prior data storage system was Fibre Channel it was more expensive to buy and offered functionality and capacity that we were paying for, but not using. With Xiotech, we have the technology our business demands today at a better initial price point. When we need to add more storage capacity in the future, we will be able to add another Magnitude 750 system, ensuring our investment today is better protected."Recent research from Enterprise Strategy Group, which surveyed more than 500 North American companies about iSCSI adoption, illustrates the move to iSCSI for ease of use capabilities. According to the February " iSCSI Enters The Mainstream" report, Senior Analyst Tony Asaro states: "Respondents feel that iSCSI will provide lower operating costs, ease of deployment and management, and will allow them to leverage their current IT skills, which all equate to being easier to manage over its lifecycle compared to Fibre Channel."

Weiss Group is using the initial Magnitude 750 system at its primary location and plans to purchase another Magnitude 750 for its customer service management system.

The Magnitude 750 administration software, ICON Manager, provides organizations with a user-installable and maintainable storage system. Users comfortable with IP and Ethernet technologies will find the setup and maintenance of the Magnitude 750 system to be simple and straightforward. Furthermore, ongoing operation, monitoring and reporting are all done from screens that are intuitively similar to those used for server management. Finally, ICON Manager features Web services technology and includes a Web services toolkit to simplify the creation of customized reporting and monitoring tools to meet users' specific needs.

"For many midsized organizations, ease-of-use is just as important as affordability," said Mike Stolz, corporate vice president of Marketing, Xiotech. "We developed ICON Manager after extensive user studies and feedback from our existing customer base. We concluded that ICON Manager needed to work both as a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in for a standard look and feel, and as a stand-alone interface for non-Microsoft environments. Receiving reviews like this one demonstrates how we are once again setting the bar for ease-of use through industry leading technology.”

Xiotech Corp.0