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3Pardata Inc. wants to make running a storage system easier, more efficient and less costly.
The Fremont, Calif., company, which was established three years ago, this fall will release its first products, all part of its InSpire Architecture storage system that aims to give users greater control of the systems operations and the ability to more easily scale as the need arises.
The system, which is being beta tested now, will be a combination of software and hardware that will be compatible with other storage systems.
The software will include three-layer virtualization, intelligent volume management, multiple administrative nodes, efficient desk space allocation capabilities and open development APIs, according to President and CEO David Scott.
The hardware is designed to be easily scalable. The company will offer three InServ Storage Servers, which range in size. The S200 includes two controller nodes, up to 48 Fibre Channel ports, up to 640 disk drives and a maximum capacity of 94 terabytes.
The S400 is the mid-sized server, with the S800 being the largest, with up to eight controller nodes, 192 Fibre Channel ports, 2,560 disk drives and 376 terabytes.
Key throughout the system is the redundancy in both the hardware and software, Scott said. The system runs up to eight copies of the InForm Operating System, can be serviced without taking the entire system down and can mirror volumes either locally or over a WAN.
“Not only is the hardware fault tolerant, which everybody does pretty well now, but also the software is fault tolerant,” said Scott.
The software includes autonomic administration, enabling the system to, in many ways, run itself, he said. There also is service-level monitoring capabilities for everything from the applications and logical disks to the drives and cache memory.
An entry-level system can be installed for less than $100,000, Scott said.
3Pardata competes with other startups, including Cereva Networks Inc., in Marlborough, Mass., and YottaYotta Inc., in Kirkland, Wash.