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Sun Follows Hitachi, HP into Virtualized Enterprise Storage

Deviating a moment from its mobile endeavors, the prolific Sun Microsystems took the time out of its busy year to release StorageTek 9990V, an enterprise storage system that boasts storage virtualization and thin provisioning features.

Senior Analyst and Founder Greg Schulz of Storage I/O believes the storage system, which flew out of left field, will give Sun “an enhanced and more scaleable high-end storage to compete in the ultra high end of the market against players like EMC, Fujitsu and IBM.”

Major features of StorageTek 9990V will work toward alleviating difficulties that system administrators encounter when managing SAN technology. And Graham Wilson, product marketing lead for Sun’s workgroup disk storage business, added that the inclusion of storage virtualization “[breaks] the mould” among conveyor belt storage products.

“Some customers deal with it as a separate device out of the controller. We believe that virtualization works better when it is in the DNA of the array itself,” he explained.

But storage virtualization is also included in Hitachi’s Universal Storage Platform V and HP’s XP24000, which came out a week preceding the Sun offering.

StorageTek, a Sun acquisition, is a longstanding Fortune 200 presence that built a bit of success with a one-time virtualized disc array conceived by its Iceberg technology. The product line was discontinued.