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MTI Is Back: Page 2 of 3

The DataSentry 2.0 hardware-based data replication product, announced today, is embedded in MTI’s Vivant storage array and allows multiple copies of data to be produced simultaneously on a local or remote basis. The replication server supports Fibre Channel-to-IP encapsulation using the emerging FCIP (Fibre Channel over IP) specs for long distance backups. The server will be generally available December 1, 2001. By mid-2002 it will support native iSCSI, Ritchie said (see MTI Upgrades Its Software).

But the hottest piece of technology over at MTI could be its v-cache appliance. This ships as a standalone device or inside MTI's Vivant V-80, adding four-way scaleability (four extra processors) to this storage array. It also sports a 100-gigabyte caching option.

According to Ritchie, as few as 5 percent of the files in a database application like Oracle Corp.'s (Nasdaq: ORCL) account for 80 percent of the I/O (input/output) resources on the array. If these files can be migrated into a cache, this frees up the burden on the storage system.

A typical caching appliance can perform around 6,000 to 10,000 I/Os per second, whereas a disk array handles far less, around 120 I/Os per second, Ritchie says.

MTI’s technology is similar to caching appliances from Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP), Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), and Extreme Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: EXTR), all of which speed up Web content serving, although the implementations vary.