Last week another third-party vendor demonstrated that it was still supporting NetWare - that's always good news!

At last week's Storage Networking World meeting in Orlando, Wasabi Systems launched Version 1.6 of its iSCSI storage product, Wasabi Storage Builder for IP-SAN. Now I'll be the first to admit that hardware and storage are not really "sexy" things to talk about. But one of the new features announced in this version of Storage Builder was support for NetWare and Novell's iSCSI initiator.

If you aren't familiar with iSCSI, it's a protocol for creating a low-cost storage-area network (SAN) using commodity high-speed Ethernet hardware. iSCSI can provide significant cost savings when compared to the costs required to create the more traditional Fibre Channel SAN. With Fibre Channel, you typically create two separate networks and two separate management domains. One is the Fibre Channel SAN dedicated to storage. The other is the traditional LAN that carries file, messaging, Web, LDAP and other standard client/server protocol packets that clients of NetWare servers use to interact with NetWare's services.

NetWare iSCSI allows a SAN to be built using the same hardware and management domain that is used in a traditional LAN. An iSCSI SAN can use the same infrastructure as the LAN or (optionally) it can have its own dedicated infrastructure.

NetWare iSCSI consists of software that you add to your existing NetWare servers. It lets you use existing hardware on your NetWare network to create a SAN and a NetWare cluster.

This recent announcement from Wasabi means that the Storage Builder service can be, essentially, "dropped in" to a NetWare network (Version 5.1 and up). Other new features in Release 1.6 include:

* E-mail notification of events within the storage appliance, including disk drive failures, temperature alarms, failed power supplies and other definable events, may be automatically transmitted to one or more system administrators.

* Enclosure management - for supported chassis and motherboard combinations, Wasabi Storage Builder now provides automated monitoring of temperature, power supply and drive status. Fan speed is automatically adjusted to maintain chassis temperatures within specifications. LEDs on enclosure front panel and drives are activated to show status. Alarms are issued when enclosures are opened or drives are removed.

Admit it, you'd really like to have more storage, wouldn't you? Manageable high-speed storage at a reasonable cost in an iSCSI SAN is now a reasonable option for your NetWare network. So visit the Wasabi Systems Storage Builder Web site and learn more.

The top 5: Today's most-read stories

1. AT&T: Fall of an icon

2. FCC okays telecom mergers with conditions

3. Level 3 to acquire WilTel

4. U.S. to require RFID chips in passports

5. SBC CTO says IPTV is on track

To contact Dave Kearns:

Dave Kearns is a writer and consultant in Silicon Valley. He's written a number of books including the (sadly) now out of print "Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Networks." His musings can be found here.