ADATA Products Rake in iF Design Awards 2013

ADATA Technology has been recognized by Germany’s International Forum Design Awards (iF), receiving awards that denote excellence in design for three products in the company’s popular DashDrive family. The evaluation criteria for iF German includes design quality, choice of material functionality, and degree of innovation. Three innovative ADATA products stood out among this year’s entrants.

The DashDrive Durable HD710 external hard drive provides mobile, rapid, and dependable data access in a rugged and sporty package. The housing of the HD710 is comprised of a unique silicone material, and the drive incorporates military-grade shockproof and waterproof (IPX7) construction with an ultra-fast USB 3.0 interface. Its lively outlook and dynamic design match the requirements and style of sports and outdoor enthusiasts, with color options including blue, yellow, and black.

The DashDrive Elite HE720 external hard drive is the world’s thinnest of its kind. Sporting a reflective stainless steel surface, and with a record-breaking slim profile of only 8.9mm thickness, the Elite HE720 also features a “One touch backup” function which automatically backs up and synchronizes data. The brushed metal exterior and elegant overall appearance enhance the fashion sense of technological lives.

The DashDrive Elite UE700 (yet to be introduced in India) USB Flash drive combines sophistication with technology, and brings a new look to a device that is seen by many as a fashion statement as well as a digital necessity. Embodying a striking appearance, the etched aluminum housing exhibits a captivating concentric texture that highlights the central LED status indicator. An ergonomic sliding USB connector eliminates the need for a cap, and the sleek carrying strap ensures the immediate accessibility of crucial data.

These award designations reinforce ADATA’s reputation as a global leader in product design, and further bolster the ADATA brand in the many consumer markets where the company’s image continues to strengthen.

VMworld 2012: Storage Takes Center Stage

Storage At The Core Of VMworld,

Storage has always been an important part of virtualized environments ever since the day VMware first introduced VMotion. However, as data centers have become more virtualized and tied to the cloud, storage has become a critical component.

The importance of storage to virtualized environments and to the cloud has never been more clear than at VMworld, where vendors large and small are introducing new flash storage arrays, data protection software, intelligent management, tiering to the cloud and more.

If you thought the storage offerings from last year's VMworld was big, you will be amazed at what's happening in 2012.

Just turn the page to get started, don't forget to look for Part 2 of this wrap -- there was just too much excitement to put in one slide show.

60 p.c India Inc. struggles to manage digital data

Digital information makes up 51 per cent of an organization’s total value, however, 60 per cent Indian businesses are struggling to effectively manage and protect their digital information, finds Symantec Corp's State of Information Survey.

Five ways to protect your business data

· Focus on the information, not the device or data centre: With BYOD and cloud, information is no longer within the four walls of a company. Protection must focus on the information, not the device or data centre.

· Not all information is equal: Business must be able to separate useless data from valuable business information and protect it accordingly.

· Be efficient: Deduplication and archiving help companies protect more, but store less to keep pace with exponential data growth.

· Consistency is key: It is important to set consistent policies for information that can be enforced wherever it is located… physical, virtual and cloud environments.

·  Stay agile: Plan for your future information needs by implementing a flexible infrastructure to support continued growth.

According to the survey, from confidential customer information and intellectual property, to financial transactions, organizations in India possess massive amounts of information that not only enable them to be competitive and efficient – but also stay in business. Business data in Indian organisations is expected to grow 67 per cent in the next 12 months.

“Our survey shows that only 15 per cent of businesses in India can confidently use their business information without being either too permissive or too restrictive about its access,” said Anand Naik, managing director, sales, India and SAARC, Symantec. “Without the ability to properly protect their information assets, this data can become a liability. To counter this, businesses in India need to put in place a plan to manage their data assets so they can have a true competitive advantage.”

Information is Skyrocketing and It’s Expensive

Businesses of all sizes are dealing with enormous amounts of data. The total size of information stored today by all businesses globally is 2.2 zettabytes. Small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) on average have 563 terabytes of data, compared with the average enterprise that has 1,00,000 terabytes. The survey also reveals that information is expected to grow 67 per cent over the next year for enterprises and 178 per cent for SMBs.

Globally, on average, enterprises spend $38 million annually on information, while SMBs spend $332,000. However, the yearly cost per employee for SMBs globally is a lot higher at $3,670, versus $3,297 for enterprise. For example, a typical 50-employee small business spends $1,83,500 on information management, whereas a typical large enterprise with 2,500 employees would spend $8.2 million.

Information Loss is High and Has Significant Impact

The survey found that a huge 89 per cent of Indian organizations have lost information in the past year.

These incidents have a significant impact: 31 per cent of Indian organizations revealed that losing some/all of their information could lead to decreased revenues, apart from loss of customers (34 per cent), increased expenses (33 per cent) and brand damage (35 per cent).

Moreover, 31 per cent of respondents were unable to comply with government regulations and 40 per cent faced similar challenges with external legal requirements around information management in the past year.

Protection Measures are Falling Short

With so much at stake, protecting information should be a top priority, yet businesses are still struggling. In the last year, besides 89 per cent of organisations losing information, 94 per cent of businesses in India have had confidential information exposed outside of the company, and 31 per cent have experienced compliance failures related to information.

Another challenge is the amount of duplicate information businesses are storing – an average of 38 per cent of data is duplicated. Storage utilization is also low, at only 23 per cent within the firewall and 20 per cent outside.

All these risks and inefficiencies result in businesses spending more than necessary on storing and protecting their information. A key issue identified by 30 per cent of businesses in India is information sprawl – the overwhelming growth of information that is unorganized, difficult to access and often duplicated elsewhere.

Evolution of digital data protection & management

The role of a computer has been evolving over the years and digital storage technology has kept up pace. Computers were used mainly for specific and niche areas in 60s and 70s like scientific research, space programs, etc.

Advent of mainframe computers saw large corporate houses leveraging computers in 70s and 80s. Personal computer introduction during mid 80s started widespread adoption of computer by variety of organizations. Over time computer became an integrated part not only with business but also on personal front at most of the homes.

Internet enhanced relevance of computer to people of all age group. Digital content generation picked-up dramatic pace with mobile taking over from desktop/laptop as the end point device. Digital content generated till 2005 got doubled in the next five years and this timeline is further shrinking. Cloud computing is further enhancing relevance and applicability of computing to even large section of business and individuals.

For both organizations and individuals, assets in the current time are mainly in digital form. For organizations to grow in these competitive times, key business differentiators need to be identified and protected from both internal and external threats to ensure continued profitable growth.

In a connected world with high dependence on internet the business is also exposed to various risks. Data loss due to human error, natural disaster like flooding, earthquake etc are being seen at more frequent pace off late. Global economic challenges have made threats evolve from nuisance value to financial exploits.

We see more and more focused activity for financial gains across business and consumer space. Financial loss due to exploitations has grown so fast that they are larger than drug trafficking industry as per one of the recent study. Continued challenges on economic front in the developed markets will fasten this rate moving forward.

Developing nations like India also face challenge caused due to high attrition of manpower which also needs to be take care in the asset protection and management perspective for business across size and vertical. It is critical to note that 30 per cent of organizations impacted due to 9/11 which lost all its data could not make a comeback post the event.

Business continuity and Digital data protection and availability hence are of paramount importance.

Direct attached storage was the most basic form of storage. Since DAS was server specific, in order to enhance utilization SAN and NAS concepts evolved so that storage was scalable and flexible. RPO/RTO were the two factors used to determine to type and level of back-up for a given need based on the criticality. Archival for long term storage evolved driven by compliance.

Back-up window became a deciding factor on the type of storage and volume of data. With enterprise applications such as ERP/CRM/SCM high availability (HA), replication and disaster recovery (DR) started becoming the norm. Online applications popularity moved the market to business continuity.

With data volume doubling every year, de-duplication solutions became relevant and popular.

The biggest challenge on storage front for CIO across business sizes are

• Data doubles every year but IT budget grows around 15% only

• Data management infrastructure has become very complex over time since more and more disks were bought to manage the data growth

• No of individual products , licensing and compatibility issues have grown out of proportion

• Backup window has become difficult to manage

• De-duplication required at multiple levels – source, destination, etc

• DR is difficult to manage to ensure backup site comes up when actual disaster strikes due to continuous changes across application, hardware, software, etc

• Compliance requires data retention for long periods of time – managing tapes may not be practical for large data size like MNC banks.

Storage virtualization with single instancing is the latest in this trend to address majority of the above CIO challenges on storage front. Single instance dramatically reduces the data volume by over 90 per cent and also ensures data growth is kept within manageable limits moving forward thus reducing the need dramatically on the primary storage front.

Data protection and management activities like back-up, DR, HA, Archival, replication across WAN, data compression and acceleration across WAN, etc. can all be managed with a single product & license saving complexity, cost and manageability issues too. In addition this technology offers instantaneous backup/retrieval with zero backup window as icing on the cake.

The author is co-founder and managing director at iValue InfoSolutions.

Teradata to deploy Quantum's tape library

Storage company Quantum Corp. announced that data analytics solutions provider Teradata has selected Quantum’s Scalar tape libraries and Scalar Key Manager encryption software.

Scott Gnau, president, Teradata Labs, says: “We carefully examined other offerings available on the market, and Quantum and its Scalar tape automation line stood out as the ideal solution to support the archive and disaster recovery demands of our data warehousing customers. These customers have ever-increasing data usage and retention needs in the petabyte range, and tape storage serves an important role in their architectures.”

Quantum’s family of Scalar tape libraries come embedded with iLayer management software and with its Scalar Key Manager, Quantum’s tape automation products provide encryption that can be centrally managed and scaled, says a release.

Robert Clark, senior vice president, Data Protection Group, Quantum, says: “As we’ve extended our leadership in protecting data across evolving architectures with new disk-based deduplication, virtualization and cloud offerings, we’ve also continued to enhance our tape automation portfolio. Today’s announcement reinforces the unmatched value our Scalar libraries provide in terms of features and cost efficiencies and the new use cases we’re addressing. Teradata is an exceptional new partner, and we look forward to working together to extend these benefits to more customers around the world.”

SafeNet intros StorageSecure solution

Data protection solutions provider SafeNet enters storage security market with the launch of its new StorageSecure solution.

Developed in partnership with unified storage player NetApp, StorageSecure is a network attached storage (NAS) security solution that encrypts data granularly over the network at multi Gbps speed.

“As data volumes proliferate and breaches become a more common occurrence, organizations need to employ a new mindset that will help protect their digital assets from internal and external threats.  StorageSecure does just that by employing intelligent storage encryption and high-assurance key management to existing storage solutions. This helps organizations play proactive defense and keep structured and unstructured data safe, secure against insider threats and remain compliant with stringent industry regulations” Sangeeta Anand, corporate vice president and general manager, Data Protection Business Unit, SafeNet Inc.

With granular encryption, customers can compartmentalize the use of data in NAS, mitigate the risk of storage admins accessing data without affecting day to day job, enable effective data shredding when needed, and demonstrate audit trail for all StorageSecure-protected data access events, says a release.

Features of StorageSecure:

Policy-based Data Security: Granular encryption of data communicated over Common Internet File System (CIFS) and Network File Service (NFS) at the folder level segregating data stored in shared NAS environments ensuring that each user’s data is effectively isolated from unauthorized access by other users and administrators.

Data Governance: FIPS 140-2 Level 3 StorageSecure is a tamper-proof network appliance with centralized high-assurance auditing and security management that stores and manages encryption keys.

Investment Protection: StorageSecure integrates within existing IT architectures and uses existing Active Directory, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) or Network Information Service (NIS) security policies and client authentication, and covers any CIFS and NFS communications supporting NAS and file servers.

StorageSecure integrates with SafeNet’s Enterprise Key Management solution, KeySecure. KeySecure enables security teams to centrally and uniformly manage cryptographic keys across various encryption platforms, while at the same time streamlines key and policy administration, adds the release.

Based on the KMIP protocol (the industry standard key management protocol), KeySecure offers management for StorageSecure, as well as storage encryption solutions including encryption for SAN by managing keys for Brocade encryption switch (BES) self-encrypted drives used in many new SAN and NAS environments (e.g. NetApp NSE), self-encrypted backup tape drives.  

NetApp appoints new director for enterprise biz

NetApp India announced the appointment of Ramanujam Komanduri as director, Enterprise Business, NetApp India Marketing & Services.

Ramanujam joins NetApp with over 20 years of industry experience spanning across organizations such as HP, Sun Microsystems and Wipro.

Anil Valluri, president, NetApp India Marketing & Services said, “NetApp in India recently announced the realignment of its go-to-market strategy to drive focused approach to the enterprise, midsize and government business. Ramanujam’s unique background and strong industry relationships will play a pivotal role to strengthen and broaden NetApp’s enterprise customer base and drive desired growth.”

Further, Anil added “We are poised for the next phase of growth and are closely aligned with our global objective to introduce innovative storage solutions and foster strategic growth across markets.”

Attachmate intros new solns to manage file transfer

Attachmate Corporation announced the availability of FileXpress Internet Server 7.2 and FileXpress Command Center 7.2, part of the Attachmate FileXpress family of products for the managed file transfer (MFT) software market.

The latest version of FileXpress expands automation, authentication and administration capabilities making FileXpress Internet Server and FileXpress Command Center helpful in managing internal and external file transfers of any size, enhance data security, make IT operations more efficient, and improve overall reliability and automation of data movement, says a release.

“One of the most frequent complaints we hear from IT managers is that provisioning and managing file transfers has a negative impact on their ability to meet milestones for ongoing projects,” said Sam Morris, product marketing manager for Attachmate’s FileXpress. “With FileXpress 7.2, we’ve made it easier for IT so they can spend less time provisioning file transfers and focus time on more strategic tasks.”

New features and enhancements include:

Automating file transfers – With FileXpress Internet Server 7.2 and Command Center 7.2, application developers can now leverage Java Message Service (JMS) integration, extending secure file transfer technologies and time-saving provisioning capabilities to modern message-oriented application development platforms.

Enhancing authentication – FileXpress Internet Server 7.2 and Command Center 7.2 expand FileXpress’ authentication capabilities with new options that include client certificate authentication for browser-based file transfers, a user-driven password reset process that streamlines the experience for end users without interrupting IT administrators, and lock-out settings for failed sign-on attempts that protect organizations from dictionary and DoS attacks.

FileXpress Internet Server 7.2 and FileXpress Command Center 7.2 are available immediately for purchase.

Fidelity to invest $20 mn in AbsolutData

Fidelity Growth Partners India announced that it will invest $20 million in data analytics company AbsolutData.

"We now serve some of the largest and most reputed retail, consumer goods, technology and hospitality companies, across US, Europe and Asia Pacific. This investment will enable us to further strengthen our ability to service the increasing demand from our global clients.” said Anil Kaul, CEO, AbsolutData.

As part of this transaction, Kabir Narang, director, Fidelity Growth Partners India, joins the AbsolutData Board of Directors.

“We had prioritized business analytics as an investment theme. This sector will continue to benefit from the dramatic increase in volume of data generated by consumer devices such as smart phones and tablets and the increase in computing power and storage capacity in organizations. The management team continues to invest in knowledge management and institutionalize processes that will help it scale rapidly,” Kabir Narang said.

Cisco, EMC partnership turning into rivalry

Cisco Systems Inc, the world's biggest network equipment maker, and EMC Corp, the leading data storage company, are increasingly encroaching on each other's turfs, in a sign their long partnership may be unraveling.

 

Cisco and EMC have for years collaborated on designing, marketing and cross-selling their products, choosing to go after corporate customers as allies instead of competitors. In 2009, they set up the VCE joint venture as a one-stop shop for data centers, bundling Cisco's networking equipment and servers with EMC's storage gear and software from EMC's VMware Inc subsidiary.

VCE has yet to turn a profit after three years, and relations between Cisco and EMC show signs of fraying, according to people familiar with the companies, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Cisco has had internal discussions in the past year about making its own move into the storage market by acquiring one of EMC's competitors, according to one source. EMC has also considered partnering with or buying Cisco's smaller networking rivals, other sources said.

And in July, when EMC's VMWare announced plans to buy network technology start-up Nicira, Cisco was taken aback. Cisco had been eyeing Nicira as well and thought it had sealed a $750 million deal for the private company before VMware unexpectedly swooped in, people familiar with that deal said.

"There's no growth to speak of in the technology market. The only way they can grow is to grab share by stepping on somebody else's toes," said Fred Hickey, editor of The High-Tech Strategist newsletter, which is widely read by investors.

When asked for comment, representatives for Cisco and EMC said they were committed to their partnership. They declined to confirm or deny if they had plans to acquire or partner with other technology companies.

"EMC and Cisco remain partners and will continue to shape the future of the data center through a broad relationship spanning many strategic areas," said a Cisco spokesman.

"EMC is thoroughly committed to the strength and longevity of our Cisco partnership," said an EMC spokesman.

Officials with VMware did not respond to a request for comment. EMC owns 80 percent of VMware, while Cisco has a small 5 percent stake.

A TROUBLED VENTURE

As corporations cut back on IT spending in a weak global economy, experts said technology companies realized that they need to have comprehensive product offerings to drive growth.

Companies are increasingly looking to buy their technology in bundles in what is known as converged infrastructure, rather than purchasing items a la carte to assemble themselves. That has led to a wave of mergers and acquisitions, such as Hewlett-Packard Co's expansion in networking with its purchase of 3Com and Dell Inc's move into storage through its purchase of EqualLogic.

Cisco and EMC have long had an amicable relationship, with EMC CEO Joe Tucci, 65, and Cisco CEO John Chambers, 63, sharing a personal friendship that dated back more than 20 years to when they worked at the now defunct Wang Laboratories.

So when Chambers was asked on a conference call how VMware's acquisition of Nicira would affect Cisco, his unusually sharp tone raised the eyebrows of analysts. Chambers said the partnership with EMC has been strong, but he also made clear that Cisco would not shy from competition.

"We are going to be an open player, and we've shown in the marketplace when we compete, we can be really, really tough," Chambers said.

The increasing competition between Cisco and EMC raises questions about the future of their loss-making joint venture VCE, which stands for Virtual Computing Environment and last month named Cisco veteran Praveen Akkiraju as its CEO.

HDS to integrate flash technology into its solutions

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation (HDS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd., announced a multi-phased strategy to incorporate flash technology across its portfolio of enterprise and mid-range IT solutions.

 

The company plans to offer a series of integrated flash devices that will be based on a new flash memory management technology developed by Hitachi.

“Up to now, the use of flash media to effectively support the demands of high-performance and time-sensitive cloud-based applications has been limited due to flash memory characteristics and controller performance. These conditions have forced customers to make compromises in cost, capacity and resilience,” said Roberto Basilio, vice president, Infrastructure Platforms Product Management, Hitachi Data Systems. "The new flash memory controller designed by Hitachi lets us bring to market a series of products designed from the ground up to accelerate computing for big data and mission-critical applications and databases."

The Hitachi Data Systems flash roadmap spans across servers, storage and appliances to enable compute acceleration, caching and high-performance storage media use cases.

The new flash memory controller can provide:

Sustained throughput four times greater than current generation solid-state drives (SSDs) that are based on multi-level cell (MLC) technology.

Over than 5 years endurance for enterprise workloads.

Inline zero block compression.

Secure erase functions.

HDS announced the immediate availability of a flash acceleration feature for its enterprise solution, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP), that enables it to achieve more than 1,000,000 random read IOPS, says a release.

These applications include indexing, OLTP databases, decision support, email and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

Later this year, Hitachi Data Systems will deliver more flash-optimized solutions.

IBM intros new mainframe with 5.5GHz processor, SSD

IBM announced zEnterprise EC12 mainframe server, an advanced version of its System z.

The IBM zEC12 enterprise system is the result of an investment by IBM Systems and Technology Group of more than $1 billion in IBM research and development primarily in Poughkeepsie, New York as well as 17 other IBM labs around the world and in collaboration with some of IBM's top clients.

The new IBM mainframe comes with built-in security features - has achieved Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 5+ security classification, providing clients the confidence to run many different applications containing confidential data on a single mainframe - and operational analytics and near real-time workload monitoring and analysis features as well.

IBM claims that the new zEC12 for a variety of workloads, including hybrid clouds. It also adds that the new mainframe runs on 'world’s fastest chip' running at 5.5 GHz. IBM's zEC12 mainframe uses hexa-core chips running at 5.5GHz.

zEC12 includes tamper-resistant cryptographic co-processor called Crypto Express4S that provides privacy for transactions and sensitive data.

Crypto Express4S includes new hardware and software, which can be configured to provide support for high quality digital signatures used with applications for smart passports, national ID cards and online legal proceedings, replacing handwritten signatures as directed by the EU and the public sector.

It support for the IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator that incorporates Netezza data warehouse appliance into zEC12 enables clients to run complex business analytics and operational analytics on the same platform.

The new mainframe also offers IT systems analytics capabilities, called IBM zAware. The technology learns from the messages to recognize patterns and quickly pinpoint any deviations, using the information to identify unusual system behavior and minimize its impact.

IBM STG Lab Services will offer services to help with planning, configuration and implementation of IBM zAware. 

The mainframe’s comes with virtualization capabilities meant for private cloud environments. Clients can consolidate thousands of distributed systems on to Linux on zEC12. It also comes with internal solid state technology with Flash Express.

Clients can also opt to run zEC12 without a raised datacenter floor -- a first for high-end IBM mainframes and also comes with new overhead power and cabling support.

zEC12 also incorporates transactional memory technology, first used commercially to help make the IBM Blue Gene/Q-based “Sequoia” system at Lawrence Livermore National Lab the fastest supercomputer in the world.

In zEC12, IBM adapted this technology to enable software to better support concurrent operations that use a shared set of data such as financial institutions processing transactions against the same set of accounts.

“We continue to drive innovation on System z,  allowing a broader set of clients to apply its leadership capabilities in security and resiliency to the current demands of their business, be they from analytics, cloud or mobile computing,” said Doug Balog, general manager IBM System z.  “Our end-to-end design approach for smarter computing -- from processors to systems to software optimization -- is targeted to handle complicated business challenges associated with managing, protecting and analyzing a client's most critical information. It’s what makes the mainframe the ultimate enterprise system.”

IBM introduced the zBX Model 003 to help extend customer’s ability to run integrated and dynamic workloads. The zBX Model 003 is designed to run with zEC12. Like its predecessor, the latest zBX includes specialty processors for specific workloads such as the IBM WebSphere DataPower Integration Appliance XI50 for zEnterprise and select IBM BladeCenter servers, adds the release.

IBM also announced today it is growing its portfolio of System z industry-focused solutions that package software from IBM or ISV partners and services or assets from IBM Global Business Services.

Server revenue down; HP, IBM tied at #1

Global server market decreased 4.8 per cent year over year to $12.6 billion in the second quarter of 2012 (2Q12), finds International Data Corporation (IDC) in its  Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, factory revenue report.

This is the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue decline, as server market demand continued to soften following a strong refresh cycle which characterized the market in most of 2010 and 2011.

Server unit shipments decreased 3.6 per cent year-over-year in 2Q12 to 2.0 million units.

This was the first year-over-year decline in server shipments since 3Q09, a period of almost three years.

On a year-over-year basis, volume systems experienced a 2.5 per cent revenue decline. At the same time, demand for midrange and high-end systems experienced year-over-year revenue declines of 11.2 per cent and 7.6 per cent respectively in 2Q12.

All three segments were impacted by difficult year-over-year compares combined with transitions in the technology refresh cycles.

"Worldwide server revenue declined for the third consecutive quarter in 2Q12 as the market continued working its way through a number of technology transitions impacting customer demand for x86, Unix, and mainframe class systems. That said, it is also clear that economic uncertainty is weighing on the market and the sales cycle is lengthening," said Matt Eastwood, group vice president and general manager, Enterprise Platforms at IDC.

"Regionally, server demand in Western Europe and Japan was particularly soft while server revenue in the US and Asia/Pacific managed to grow modestly. It is important to note that IDC believes that server demand will begin to improve in the second half of 2012 following a number of critical product refreshes which continue to be announced," he added.

Overall Server Market Standings, by Vendor

HP and IBM jointly held the number 1 position in the worldwide server market with 29.6 per cent and 29.2 per cent factory revenue share respectively for 2Q12, a statistical tie.

IBM experienced a 8.2 per cent year-over-year decline in factory revenue losing 1.1 points of share in the quarter on soft demand for System x, Power Systems, and System z ahead of a number of major product transitions.

HP's factory revenue declined 5.0 per cent year-over-year in 2Q12 based on flat sales for x86-based ProLiant servers offset by continued declines in HP Integrity server demand. Dell maintained third place with 16.0 per cent factory revenue market share in 2Q12. Dell's factory revenue increased 5.9 per cent compared to 2Q11 helping Dell to its highest-ever server market share in any quarter.

Oracle maintained the number 4 position with 6.0 per cent factory revenue share; Oracle's 2Q12 factory revenue decreased 20.1 per cent compared to 2Q11.

Fujitsu ended the quarter in the number 5 market position with 3.9 per cent factory revenue share. Facing a tough yearly compare from the K-computer HPC deal in 2Q11, Fujitsu server revenue declined 42.1 per cent year-over-year.

Transcend's SATA III 6Gb/s SSD720 Declared a ''Must Have'' Product by Independent Reviewer KitGuru

Transcend Information, has proudly announced that its next generation SSD720 SATA III 6Gb/s solid state drive (SSD) has received an overall 9 out of 10 review score by independent online product reviewer KitGuru. ''This may be the first Transcend product we have reviewed, but the SSD720 128GB is without doubt, a monster,'' said the reviewer at KitGuru after the SSD720 produced impressive results in real-world testing.

Taking full advantage of the latest SATA III 6Gb/s specification and driven by a powerful SandForce controller, the SSD720 boasts impressive sequential read/write transfer speeds and lightning-fast 4k random file writes up to 86,000 IOPS. Competing against a huge selection of leading drives from market competitors, the reviewer commended Transcend's SATA III 6Gb/s SSD720 for its fast transfer performance: ''It performs better than many of the competing SandForce 2281 powered drives'' thanks to the use of industry-leading toggle-mode MLC NAND flash chips, and then added, ''IOPS performance is also well above average, meaning that it can be used for more serious workstation/server duties while maintaining a high level of sustainable throughput.''

The SSD720 was especially praised in the ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement section of the review: ''Performance with ATTO is class leading – measuring 559 MB/s read and 526 MB/s write,'' outperforming all other same-class drives tested. (ATTO is used to measure storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes). ''We have no hesitation in recommending this drive as a versatile, fast and competitively priced choice for a high performance boot drive,'' the reviewer from KitGuru concluded, awarding it a well-deserved ''Must Have Award''.

As one of the UK's largest growing tech sites, KitGuru brings a new level of drive and energy to the technology journalism arena. KitGuru takes pride in being able to source and evaluate the very latest technology as fast as any other site on the planet. It then uses skill and experience to deliver solid, reliable buying advice. The quality of both investigative journalism and impartial reviews has seen KitGuru achieve an exponential growth in web traffic since the formal launch of the site.

KINGMAX Launches High Performance SATA III Client Pro SSD

KINGMAX Launches High Performance SATA III Client Pro SSD

While PC user is more and more concerning high performance and high quality SSD, the world renowned memory and Flash module manufacturer, Taiwan – Taipei 21 August, 2012 KINGMAX, recently launches high performance SATA III Client Pro SSD – SMU 32 and SMU35. Adopting Sandforce controller and high speed synchronous Flash memory, Client Pro SSD delivers sequential read/write speed up to 550MB/s, 520MB/s, and 4KB random write speed up to 85,000 IOPS. Its superior performance meets needs for every user, no matter for advanced gaming, multitasking or multimedia computing.  

KINGMAX SATA III Client Pro SSD is based on powerful Sandforce controller and the latest firmware technology, which is able to maximize performance, extend product endurance and lifetime and enhance data protection and reliability. Since synchronous Flash is the higher grade memory, it achieves the better performance and the longer lifetime than asynchronous flash does, especially the performance under random write. For general users, synchronous Flash keeps high performance last after long term usages. 

SMU32 and SMU35 support NCQ and TRIM command to optimize performance; DuraWrite , powerful wear leveling algorithm and intelligent block management also enhance lifetime; Data is safeguarded by S.M.A.R.T function and protected by high level of Error Correction Code - 55 bit BCH ECC, avoiding worries from potentially flash block failures. In addition, SMU32 and SMU35 also support RAID, and PC enthusiasts can build up super fast PC system by using multiple SSD. SMU 32 is basic version and SMU 35 is desktop version, with 3.5 inch drive bay bracket includes. Both versions offer various capacities of 60GB/120GB/240GB/480GB and make them suitable whether as a system disk or as a replacement of hard disk.

Demonstration for 3.5 inch drive bay bracket

KINGMAX SSD uses premium selected Flash IC and undergoes 100% rigorous test from IC screening to product assembly. The manufacturing process is controlled by highest standards to ensure the best quality and pleasant user experience. KINGMAX SATA III Client Pro SSD meets RoHS regulations (Restriction of hazardous substances in electronic and electrical and electronic equipment), CE and FCC. It supports Window 7 and major OS, so product and system compatibility is never a worry. Last but not least, SMU32 and SMU35 are also backed up with 3 years warranty service to ensure premium product quality and flawless customer services.

Mellanox soars as storage, cloud demand boosts results

NEW YORK, USA: Shares of Mellanox Technologies touched their life high on Thursday, after the Israeli chipmaker's quarterly profit handily beat analysts' expectations on strong storage, data and cloud trends.

At least 10 brokerages raised their price targets on the company's stock.

"This is the second quarter in a row that Mellanox breaks every growth record possible and raises the level of investors' expectations to new heights," Harel Finance analyst Rami Rozen said in a note to clients.

Rozen, who has an 'outperform' rating on Mellanox's stock, raised his price target by $30 to $110.

Mellanox, which designs chips for the InfiniBand data exchange standard that regulates the way servers and data storage systems communicate with each other, counts Hewlett-Packard Co and IBM Corp among its customers.

"In InfiniBand (IB), Mellanox is a generation ahead of Intel Corp and clearly benefiting from IB gaining share in various servers/storage platforms," Needham & Co wrote in a note.

The brokerage raised its price target on the stock to $100 from $69.

Psagot analyst Aviad Shimon, who had just raised his price target to $81 a week ago, said demand for Mellanox's products remains strong despite the economic slowdown. He raised his price target to $115 on Thursday.

Shares of the company jumped 44 per cent to $95.55 in early trading, making them one of the biggest percentage gainers on the Nasdaq.

The stock has more than doubled in the past year

Best cloud storage for smartphones

BANGALORE: INDIA: A list of cloud service providers, whose storage space can be availed for free on your smartphones.

  Cloud Service   Free Storage      Device Compatability     Upgrade Pricing

 Dropbox             2 GB        iPhone, Android and Blackberry              50GB=$99/year, 100GB=$199/year

Cloud Drive         5 GB      Android only     20 GB= $20/year, 50 GB =$50/year, 100 GB = $100/year, 200 GB= $200/year, 500 GB=$500/year, 1000 GB=$1000/year

 Box.com             5 GB      iPhone, Android and Blackberry               500GB=$180/year

 Google Drive     5 GB      Android and iPhone       25GB=$29.88/year, 100GB=$59.88/year, 200GB=$1199.88/year

 SkyDrive             7 GB        iPhone and Windows Phone     20GB=$10/year, 50GB=$25/year, 100GB=$50/year

 iCloud  5 GB      iPhone only       10GB=$20/a, 20GB=$40/a, 50GB)=$100/year

While, Dropbox had doubled its free cloud storage space for its Pro users and also has a 500 GB plans on cards, Amazon's Cloud Drive provides 20GBs of free storage when you buy MP3 album on Amazon.

Moreover, while Apple has extended its 20GB extra iCloud storage incentive for its MobileMe users from June 30 to September 30, 2012, Microsoft continues to offer 25 GB of free SkyDrive storage for its old users.

Now that Amazon had hinted that a smartphones from its stables is on its way, it is only a matter of time, when you will start accessing free GBs of Cloud Drives from more smartphones. Others to watch in this space are Samsung S Cloud, LG Cloud and Huawei Cloud.

Top smartphones that come bundled with free cloud storage:

 Device Name    Free Storage     Cloud

 iPhone phones                5GB       iCloud

 Huawei Ideos X3, Sonic                16GB    Netdrive

 Nokia Lumia 610/710.800/900    7GB       SkyDrive

 HTC One             25GB    Dropbox

 Samsung Galaxy S 3       5GB/All Share    SugarSync

Though Samsung had announced free 50GB online storage offer from Dropbox, while launching its Galaxy S3 in the US, it had to backtrack, since the carriers reportedly decided to opt-out of the two-year free cloud storage deal.

Early this year, Box.com had a promotional offer of 50GB free for all Android OS based smartphone or tablet, for about a period of one month. This was unlike its last year's offer of free 50 GB storage, for lifetime, for all LG Android, Sony Xperia smartphones and for Apple's iPhone.