Storage is becoming one of the most critical IT infrastructure assets especially with the dependency on electronic information such as email but also with virtualization and looming related technology such as “cloud computing”.

Laminar offers a wide range of storage solutions based on the same two vendors utilized for server infrastructure namely HP and IBM. In selecting the right solution many business issues need to be considered such as access speeds, storage volume, back up, retention, recovery points, replication, virtualization and reliability to name a few. Laminar can help you through this maze!

IBM
The IBM storage portfolio is considerable and segmented into 5 categories. They are designed to simplify, reduce risk, increase efficiency, and lower costs. These are:

Disk Storage
This suite of products is used to build disk based storage systems for small, midrange and enterprise applications. It incorporates their SAN and NAS solutions. A key part of the suite is the DS family of products which are more traditional SAN technology. They are:
· Designed to simplify storage infrastructures, support business continuity and improve information lifecycle management;

· Focused on providing significant improvements in functionality, performance and total cost of ownership by leveraging leading IBM technology;

· Offering a range of scalable solutions to address your storage needs, from the smallest distributed storage server to the largest data center;

· Provides a continuum of enterprise storage products that support IBM as well as non-IBM open systems and mainframe servers;

· Offers excellent price/performance options with a broad array of products that serve as a foundation for tiered storage environments;

· Enables streamlined systems management with common management tools based on open standards;

· Offers a broad family of disk storage solutions that provides the freedom and choices to best match the value of data with the most appropriate storage.

One of the newest and most exciting technologies from IBM is the new XIV Storage System. The IBM XIV Storage System™ is an enterprise-class, Tier-1 disk system designed to deliver high performance and eliminate hot spots through full exploitation of all system resources for all applications. Its revolutionary architecture provides performance, scalability, and ease of management while harnessing the high capacity and cost benefits of SATA drives. The XIV Storage System is based on a grid of standard, off-the-shelf hardware components. It employs a single storage architecture designed to provide the highest level of performance, reliability and features, together with management simplicity and exceptional TCO.

The IBM System Storage N series products are designed to meet the needs of customers who desire a unified storage solution where a single storage system has the capability of supporting mission critical applications using Fibre Channel, iSCSI and NAS protocols. One N series storage system instead of three separate boxes can help simplify IT device management. The unique unified storage architecture of N series is intended to help organisations reduce investment, operational and management costs by reducing complexity.

Tape Storage
IBM tape products are designed to offer high performance, availability, reliability, and capacity to help meet the needs of customers seeking enterprise class storage solutions for mass storage, data archiving, enterprise backup, and disaster recovery. IBM's enterprise, midrange and entry class storage products provide on-demand solutions for business.

Storage Software
IBM System Storage Open Software Reduce the complexity and costs of managing your SAN-based storage. The four main solutions are Storage Virtualisation, Productivity Centre, Storage Manager and SAN Volume Controller.

Storage virtualisation software is designed to improve the flexibility and utilisation of your storage. Virtualisation works by pooling your storage volumes, files and file systems into a single reservoir of capacity for centralised management. This reservoir can include storage capacity from multiple vendors and platforms in heterogeneous environments. Virtualisation is also designed to reduce the effects of reconfigurations and at the hardware level, to help support business continuity.

Productivity Centre will help you Identify, evaluate, control and predict the growth of data through its lifecycle to meet storage service levels. The IBM Tivoli Storage Manager will help you protect data from failures and other errors by storing backup, archive, space management and bare-metal restore data.

Businesses looking for the benefits of storage virtualisation may consider the IBM System Storage™ SAN Volume Controller (SVC). SVC can simplify management of storage while improving storage utilisation, and it can grow with your business by converting easily to the full SAN Volume Controller offering.

Storage Area Networking (SAN)
IBM SAN products and solutions provide integrated SMB and enterprise SAN solutions with multi-protocol local, campus, metropolitan and global storage networking.

HP
The storage solutions available from HP can be scaled for almost any size business. Their portfolio includes technologies in six categories. These are:

Disk Storage Systems
This incorporates traditional Storage Area Networks (SAN), disk arrays Disk to Disk Back up, virtual libraries and the new scalable iSCSI technologies. One of the new storage technologies available from HP is the “LeftHand” product range which dramatically improves overall storage efficiency.

The HP LeftHand P4000 SAN Solutions are optimized for database and email applications, as well as virtualized servers. With a pay-as-you-grow, all-inclusive pricing model and intuitive storage management software, the SAN is perfect for the budget-minded. The P4000 eliminates single points of failure across the SAN with an innovative approach to data availability, reducing risk without driving up costs. Built on a storage clustering architecture, the HP P4000 SAN allows you to scale capacity and performance linearly without incurring downtime or performance bottlenecks, or forcing expensive upgrades.

Network Attached Storage (NAS)
Comprehensive range of reliable, cost-effective data protection solutions. High-performance clustered NAS with no single points of failure. Increase file serving performance, lower costs and centralize management.

Tape and Storage Media
Comprehensive range of reliable, cost-effective data protection solutions. Tape Libraries and Autoloaders to free up IT resources and minimize the risk of human error. Complete, ready-to-use backup solutions featuring DAT, DLT and LTO tape drives with One-Button-Disaster-Recovery.

Information Management Software
Active archiving and data migration solutions providing fast access to content. Affordable archival storage with tape-based archive solutions -- reducing power and cooling requirements.

Storage Networking
Multi-protocol SAN routers and gateways to simplify SAN extension and new technology integration. Flexible, modular director level switches. SAN fabric connectivity for unmatched performance, reliability and interoperability.

Storage Software
Manage: Device management software for storage reporting, monitoring, and provisioning. Protect: Software for data protection and disaster tolerance. Optimize: Software to improve performance, reduce costs and achieve compliance.