click here for iSCSI storage systems and adapters STORAGEsearch includes news and analysis about the top 1000 storage companies the SPARC Product Directory includes lists of oems, VARs and news and analysis about the SPARC market

Used Sun Servers from from Vibrant Technologies
Used Sun Servers
from Vibrant Technologies

Sun Resellers & SPARC Resellers in the UK

.......
Sun Ray compatible notebooks from Accutech
Sun Ray compatible notebooks
from Accutech Ultrasystems
the Fastest SSDs
Rackmount SSD Arrays
Flash SSDs / RAM SSDs
What's an SSD? / SSD Market History
Squeak! - How Solid is Hard Disk's Future?
Squeak! - the Solid State Disks Buyers Guide
Squeak! - the Top 10 Solid State Disk Companies
Squeak! - RAM SSDs versus Flash SSDs - which is Best?
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SPARC Users - Heads Up Alert! - Re Data Storage Reliability

Editor:- March 5, 2008 - I know that you use SPARC servers because you care about the smooth running of your enterprise - and don't like to fire fight foreseeable, avoidable irritating glitches.

But something which you or your organization may do (for what seems like perfectly valid economic reasons) could soon result in unwittingly ... more


TSMC SPARC CPUs will Have Even More Cores

SANTA CLARA, Calif - February 19, 2008 - Sun Microsystems Inc. today announced that it had selected Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company as its foundry partner for processors based on a 45-nanometer design as well as future generations.

Sun will continue to design its chips while long-time Sun partner TI will continue to test and build the 45-nanometer processors in TSMC.

"After a lengthy evaluation we selected TSMC for one reason: they're simply the best at turning complex processor designs into silicon," said David Yen, Sun's executive vice president, Microelectronics group. "TSMC is already fully engaged with engineers from both Sun and TI and I expect we'll all benefit from the cross-pollination of ideas among these three companies."

Sun, which currently designs processors based on 90- and 65-nanometer processes, is moving to the smaller 45-nanometer to allow more circuitry to be squeezed onto the same amount of silicon. The result: chip designers are free to add new features such as processing cores or encryption engines that improve overall chip performance.

The 45-nanometer design process also allows Sun to increase the number of threads per processor. storage chips


XML Firewall Supports Solaris on SPARC

Vancouver, Canada - February 11, 2008 - Layer 7 Technologies announced today its XML Firewall and XML Networking Gateway software products support Solaris 10 on SPARC platforms from Sun Microsystems.

The SecureSpan XML Firewall provides advanced identity and message level SOA security for cross-domain, B2B and portal applications, while the SecureSpan XML Networking Gateway adds support for complex SOA message routing, mediation, virtualization and Service Level Agreements. In addition to gateway software Layer 7 also offers a family of turnkey, hardware-accelerated XML appliances for the data center. ...Layer 7 Technologies, Storage Security


It's Groundhog Day for 8Gbps Fibre Channel HBAs

COSTA MESA, Calif - February 6, 2008 - Emulex Corp today announced availability of its 8Gb/s Fibre Channel host bus adapters.

Designed to maintain backward compatibility with existing 4Gb/s and 2Gb/s products, Emulex PCI Express 2.0-based 8Gb/s HBAs enable a seamless transition to next-generation SANs. ...Emulex profile

Editor's comments:-
my first reaction to this was - hadn't I already run a similar story about QLogic sampling 8Gbps HBAs last August? Turns out I had. That's why Emulex's white paper Fact vs. Fiction - What QLogic doesn't want you to know (pdf) is also getting a link here.


How Many Apps on Solaris? etc

Editor:- January 24, 2008 - an article published today on ITJungle.com discusses how many ISVs actually support Solaris.

An interesting part of the article is speculation about how some other OS's which were important in SPARC's infancy have fared since. According a Sun survey cited in the article most ISVs still love Solaris.

That's in stark contrast to IHVs. Most IHVs which strongly supported the SPARC platform in the 1990s exited the market many years ago. Although there are genuine opportunities for leveraging Sun's newer processors many IHVs are safer with Intel architecture processors because of the availability of alternative sources.

That's the coffee which helped create the buzz about SPARC in the early 1990s - when many chipmakers made SPARC chips which could be used in workstations. It could happen again. When someone is prepared to go public on this I'll let you know on these pages.


Nanochip Aims to Trash Flash SSDs

Fremont, Calif - January 22, 2008 - Nanochip, Inc. today announced the completion of a $14 million series C financing round.

It will allow Nanochip to complete development of its first prototypes later this year to support design verification testing and limited customer sampling in 2009 followed by full commercialization in 2010.

Nanochip is developing a new class of ultra-high-capacity non volatile storage chips. Nanochip says its first products could exceed 100GB per chip set, reaching terabytes in the future, and at a substantially lower cost compared with flash memory solutions.

"Flash has become the technology of choice for a variety of consumer and business applications where cost-effective, non-volatile solid-state storage is a must," said Keith Larson, VP and director of investor Intel Capital. "However, as flash process technology scaling begins to approach its limits, Nanochip's technology is well positioned to provide memory capacity with exponentially higher storage densities at a cost per gigabyte significantly below that of flash technology. New memory components, such as Nanochip's, will enable new, innovative electronics devices and increase the performance of existing computing and other devices." ...Nanochip profile

Editor's comments:-
I'm used to waiting years between the time I first mention a company on these pages to the time that their first product apears. Nanochip is a good example. The company was founded in 1996 and was listed here in 2001. But it doesn't expect to sample its first commercial products till 2009. That's a 13 year gestation period!

Although the company looks and talks like a chipmaker - it aims to compete head to head in the solid state disk market and I predict it will have to design make and market demonstration SSDs in order to prove its concept to the oems it hopes will one day use its technology, or license it or (more likely) acquire the company.
SPARC history:- see this UK Sun VAR page in 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003
SPARC VARs in the UK

AMTEC

ATS Solutions

Clarity Technology

Computacenter

Diamond Point

Distributor Systems International

Esteem Computers

Eurotech Computer Services

GE Access

Hamilton Rentals

Ibus

Ideal Hardware

Indecs Group

Latitude

Morse

NE Computing

Partner Support Services

Prob-Solve Solutions

Productivity Computer Solutions

Recurve Technologies

Sandyx Systems

Standard Build

Sunrise Computer Maintenance

Transtec Systems

Westek Technology

World Data Products

XOptions.com

Zycko

SPARC VARs listed below are links only, and do not have profiles on this site

1Net Solutions

Access Computing

Active Network Systems

Advent Imaging

Altor

Asset Online

b2net

Barron McCann

Bell Microsystems

Business Systems Group

Business Systems International

CAM Computer Services

Centra Technology

Cimage Enterprise Systems

Computer Computer

Creative Graphic Systems

Datacentre

Definitive Technologies

Dynamite Distribution

Essential Computing

EXQUIP Network Services

Floating Point Systems UK

G & A Computer Services

Glasser Whitley

Hart Communications

Hire Information Technology

Hytec Information Systems

Idea Integration

InTechnology

ITM Components

Keltec

Kingswell Computer Company

K-NET

Metadigm

MDIS Group

Newell & Budge

NextCom Europe

Parallel

Peritech Systems

Phoebus Solutions

Prism Microsystems

Resolv Computers

Q Associates

Quadrics Supercomputers World

RAMEtronics UK

Rednet

SCC

Solis Systems

Spearhead Computing

Speedie Computer Systems

Stellar Performance

Sun's UK iForce List

Systemextra

Tectonic

Telesoft Design

Torex Services

VSPL

Wordsworth Technology

Workstation Technologies

Axstor for iSCSI NAS  storage
Axstor, based in Coventry in the UK, provides
world class high-performance iSCSI storage
solutions at a cost-effective price point.

Vibrant Technologies has been selling Sun servers since 1998
Vibrant Technologies sells used Sun servers
and new and used storage all around the
world to over 3,500 customers.

Quorum offers real-time resource control for any application across any system.
Quorum - High Availability and Workload
Management appliance from Themis Computer
Manage upto 50 servers in real-time, any application,
any server with 1 simple interface.
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Squeak! - the Solid State Disks Buyers Guide
This is the 5th annual edition of this very popular report.

The earlier edition of this article was the most popular storage article viewed by STORAGEsearch.com's readers in the previous year.
the solid state disks buyers guide
The SSD Buyers Guide lists all SSD products commercially available in the market by form factor, interface type and memory technology. It also includes a summary of key milestones in the SSD market in the past year. ...read the article, solid state disks
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Squeak! - Animal Brands and Metaphors in the Storage Market
Squeak! - Animal Brands and Metaphors in the Storage Market
Animal marketing metaphors are popular in service industries, but you'd be surprised how many companies have used animals in their marketing of data storage products and services.

The storage market was worth over $160 billion in 2006, and as it gets bigger - more companies will turn to animal brands to help differentiate their otherwise bland products and lend them artificial (or deserving) characters and virtues.

The idea behind this type of marketing is to suggest positive connotations so it's unlikely that anyone will choose to associate their products with gremlins. But you may be surprised by the population of the storage ark.

This reference articles lists all known companies who have furry marketing brands, and also includes some which are slimy, scaly and scary too. ...read the article, Mice in storage
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click to read RAID article by Infortrend
10 Ten Tips for a Successful RAID Implementation - article by Infortrend

Editor:- In the 20 years since I first worked on RAID I've read and published countless articles about this subject.

So what can a new RAID article tell you?

Plenty of practical stuff - from a modern perspective. ...read the article , ...Infortrend profile
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worlds fastest 3.5 inch solid state disk from Curtis
world's fastest 3.5" solid state disk
from Curtis

Targa Series 4 - 2.5 inch SCSI flash disk
Removable Military Solid State Disks
from Targa Systems

ACSL publisher of the SPARC Product Directory is a Member of SPARC International
ACSL, publisher of the SPARC Product Directory,
is a member of SPARC International.
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read the article by ICS - Sanitization Methods
Sanitization Methods for Cleaning Up Hard Disk Drives - article by Intelligent Computer Solutions

Removing the data on old unwanted disk drives has become a concern for all users.

In 2005 Pointsec found that they were able to read 7 out of 10 hard-drives bought over the Internet at auctions such as eBay, for less than the cost of a McDonald's meal, all of which had "supposedly" been "wiped-clean" or "re-formatted".

This article reviews the various methods available to sanitize hard disks along with the advantages and disadvantages in each case....read the article, ...Intelligent Computer Solutions profile, disk sanitizers
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SPARC(R) is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc. SPARC PRODUCT DIRECTORY(SM) is a service mark of SPARC International, Inc used under license by ACSL. Products using the SPARC trademarks are based on an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.