NETWORKS

PITTSBURGH--Spinnaker Networks(TM), a leader in the development of next generation distributed storage systems, today announced the SpinServer(TM) 4100, the industry's highest performance and most scalable NAS server. The first member of the SpinServer 4000 Series, the SpinServer 4100 delivers a 50 percent performance increase over Spinnaker's SpinServer 3300, and a 40 percent performance advantage compared to a Network Appliance FAS960 filer. Market-leading single server performance combined with a global distributed file system delivers the capability to non-disruptively scale performance and capacity well beyond competitive solutions from Network Appliance and EMC. This makes the SpinServer 4100 the optimal choice for enterprise storage consolidation in NFS and CIFS environments. With the introduction of the SpinServer 4000 Series, Spinnaker offers a line of advanced NAS solutions that gives customers the option to choose the best NAS server to meet the performance and cost requirements for their application. A combination of SpinServer 3300 and 4100 servers can be deployed together for a customized approach to enterprise storage management and availability. "The SpinServer 4100 delivers a new level of performance, scalability and manageability and provides customers with an ideal solution in a broad range of applications, including large scale Oracle databases, large scale server consolidation, and performance demanding applications in the fields of energy, entertainment, engineering, and life sciences," said Jeff Hornung, Spinnaker Networks' Vice President of Marketing. "The unprecedented performance capabilities of the SpinServer 4100, combined with the versatility of the SpinServer architecture, make Spinnaker a one-stop source for all enterprise NAS storage requirements." According to Arun Taneja, founder and consulting analyst of The Taneja Group, "With these levels of performance and manageability, customers can start deploying NAS both in very high-transaction database environments as well as high-bandwidth steaming media applications. A high performance, balanced NAS product with excellent manageability, what's not to like?" All Spinnaker SpinServers, including the new SpinServer 4100, are built on the same innovative, scalable NAS architecture. The SpinServer platform is a breakthrough NAS storage solution that eliminates the complexities of storage management inherent in traditional NAS architectures, while offering unprecedented capacity and performance scalability. Combining a switched Gigabit Ethernet clustering design with SpinFS(TM), a unique global distributed file system, the SpinServer family does away with the 'NAS island' nature of previous generations of NAS products. It enables centralized management of up to 512 SpinServers in a scalable cluster as a single global storage pool, dramatically reducing the time, complexity and cost of effectively managing large-scale NAS storage assets. SpinFS leverages the cumulative performance of all clustered servers to deliver linear performance scalability whenever a new SpinServer is added to the cluster. SpinClusters(TM) can consist of any combination of SpinServer 3300 and 4100 models and can be scaled to up to 11,000 terabytes. The Spinnaker SpinFS global distributed file system allows all Spinnaker storage to be managed from a single command line or web based management console and with a single management view. Spinnaker's SpinMove(TM) software enables on-the-fly, non-disruptive file system movement anywhere within a cluster. Storage administrators can easily load-balance, redistribute data, or reconfigure an entire storage environment with zero downtime and without having to modify user desktops. SpinHA(TM) and SpinMirror(TM) software options provide the highest levels of data protection and availability. SpinHA offers server redundancy and complete failover functionality for demanding 24x7 environments. The SpinHA solution prevents data loss and delivers greater than 99.99 percent availability to keep critical processes running, while SpinMirror enables mirroring of data to SpinServers connected via a LAN, MAN, or WAN in a SpinCluster. The software provides a robust data mirroring solution for enterprises and service providers requiring complete data protection and immediate service restoration in the event of a disaster. All SpinServer models provide flexible storage capabilities. A single SpinServer or multiple SpinServers in a scalable cluster can be deployed with any of three storage options: -- a) Spinnaker SpinStor high performance Fibre Channel disk storage arrays -- b) SAN-based storage systems from industry leading vendors -- c) ATA disk systems for cost-sensitive applications