Quantum Corp. on Monday announced its first enterprise-scale network-attached storage product, which is based on Linux, thereby marking the companys plans to compete with software titan Microsoft Corp.
Quantums new product, the Guardian 14000, scales to 1.4 terabytes in a 3U case, or 20 terabytes linked in a rack, officials said. It can connect to environments of Microsoft Windows, Linux, Unix and Apple Computer Inc.s Macintosh operating systems, and supports Active Directory Service and Unix Network Information Service.
Until now, the Milpitas, Calif., company has made its name in low-end NAS devices for workgroups and small businesses, and in enterprise tape and tape automated loader systems. However, with most of its rivals partnering for Microsofts Server Appliance Kit, Quantum saw Linux as unstaked territory, officials said.
Guardian 14000 has RAID levels 0, 1 and 5, hot-swappable/redundant disk drives, power supplies, cooling fans, and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports with load balancing and failover functions.
Kerberos and Secure Sockets Layer 3.0 provide the new products security. Snapshot functions, Simple Network Management Protocol support and support for Computer Associates International Inc.s Unicenter and IBM/Tivolis NetView are also included. Veritas Software Corp. and CA backup is also supported.
Guardian 14000 will be generally available this summer, officials said, and will cost $24,900 with a three-year warranty.
