Hammer to Distribute V2 Electronics Storage Server

In a move to extend the benefits of storage area network (SAN) technology to the increasingly important SME and mid-markets, leading storage specialist, Hammer, has announced it is to distribute the new V2 Electronics Storage Server in the UK.

As businesses face data storage requirements that are fast exceeding their existing storage capacity, SANs offer highly scalable and accessible storage together with greatly improved data management and protection for business information, says Hammers joint managing director, Paul Sangster.

With dual Intel Xeon processors and sophisticated storage management software designed by LeftHand Networks, the new V2 Storage Server now brings these benefits within reach of a much broader range of businesses, he confirms. In particular, such enterprise-class functionality as snapshot and replication enables companies of all sizes for the first time to set up a cost-effective disaster recovery solution.

The V2 Storage Server supports up to 16 Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives per server, with iSCSI or Fibre Channel connectivity. It has as standard a full line-up of dynamic software features that simplify storage management and lower administration costs, by allowing users to configure and manage the SAN system from a single, intuitive graphical console.

These features offer the ability to configure and provision volumes quickly without system downtime, the capability to make incremental copies of data volumes and authentication for improved data access.

Further optional features extend the capacity and performance of the V2 Storage Server. These provide business continuity, by adding an additional layer of protection from natural disasters and outages affecting an entire suite. Users can cluster and manage multiple V2 Storage Servers as a single, virtualised pool, ensuring higher availability with failover and load balancing capabilities.

In the past, high equipment costs and operations costs associated with proprietary technologies have put SANs firmly beyond the budgets of many small and mid-sized companies, says Sangster.

This is now changing. By using open architectures based on industry-standard technologies and new management tools, significantly lowering SAN systems costs, the V2 Electronics Storage Server has made storage area networking a practical solution for todays increasing storage requirements