3Par, FalconStor Join Forces on Utility VTL

The two companies announce a partnership that will combine 3Par's InServ Storage Server and FalconStor's VTL to unify nearline, online and virtual application data.

3ParData Inc. and FalconStor Software Inc. announced a joint testing and interoperability partnership on Tuesday that will combine the companies respective storage utility and VTL (virtual tape library) technologies to create a Utility VTL capable of consolidating customers nearline, online and virtual application data onto a unified platform.

Targeted for general availability at the end of March, Utility VTL will be composed of 3Pars InServ Storage Server and FalconStors VTL. The parties also unveiled a joint technical alliance on Tuesday. The companies have each others equipment in their interoperability labs to perform testing and to ensure cooperative support agreements are in place.

In terms of future integration, 3Par, of Fremont, Calif., and FalconStor, of Melville, N.Y., are investigating the possibility of rolling out 3Pars storage utility with FalconStors real-time data migration capability as a service to customers in need of moving massive amounts of data immediately to start or bolster consolidation projects, according to Craig Nunes, vice president of marketing for 3Par.

Resource Library:

The idea behind building the joint Utility VTL, said Nunes, stemmed from a large financial services customer--featuring 150TB of 3Par storage--that approached 3Par about consolidating not just online and nearline storage but also adding virtual data on the 3Par storage array to the mix.

By using Utility VTL, customers can extend a single pool of capacity to accommodate VTL actions such as incremental backups. In the past, customers were forced to buy small silos of storage capacity for VTL that would only be dedicated to that function. That, in turn, would require separate management and a separate domain, for example, for a particular array.

"What were saying is you can have a pool of capacity and slice a bit of capacity off that pool, to use it on-demand where [customers] need it. [Utility VTL] reduces the management of disparate arrays, drives up utilization, and keeps a common and simple administration of disk spaces, VTL volumes, around data partition volumes and archive volumes," said Nunes.

Although FalconStor does feature an OEM and resell model, Utility VTL will only be sold directly through joint efforts between 3Par and FalconStor and their partners.

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