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Storigen: Echoes of Akamai

Storigen Systems, a startup in Lowell, Mass., plans to shake up storage paradigms by putting storage devices at the edge of the network, according to Byte and Switch sources.

Storigen's formula is similar to that of
Akamai Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM), which speeds up the delivery of Web content by keeping it in caching appliances closer to the user. Storigen intends to put intelligent storage appliances in the same spots, to speed up the delivery of data across the network. The question is: Can Storigen cash in on a cache-like approach to networked storage services?

Service providers offering managed storage services today would traditionally house storage equipment in large data centers and dole out the storage resources from there.

In the Storigen model, storage is springled more liberally throughout the network, creating something like storage points-of-presence (POPs). This puts the equipment geographically closer to the user to deliver an order of magnitude improvement in performance, scalability, and quality of service,” the company claims.

Storigen plans to sell the devices to SSPs (storage service providers), claiming it will help them administer storage more easily, thereby cutting costs. Virtualization software on the appliance is expected to play a key role, but exactly how Storigen will employ it isn't clear yet, nor whether that idea will fly with eventual customers.

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