HP has done it again! They just started shipping a new breed of Windows Storage Servers and they demonstrated them on the show floor at TechEd Berlin on November 8th -12th. They have a sweet portfolio of Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 products now available; from the small-business X1000 G2 to the enterprise-grade and highly available X3000 G2 series. These beautiful pieces of machinery can serve up storage for thousands of users using all your favorite protocols like SMB2.1, iSCSI, NFS, HTTP, FTP, WebDAV and many more. Plus it comes with a bunch of hardware, software and data management capabilities that no previous storage offerings have put together in one package. I hear lots of people getting excited about using BranchCache and File Classification Infrastructure to save time and money.
HP StorageWorks X1000 G2 and X3000 G2 Network Storage Systems The new G2 products have nice little URLs so you can find them easier on their site. See www.hp.com/go/x1000-g2 and www.hp.com/go/x3000-g2
Here are new videos of the X1000 G2 and X3000 G2 running in the HP Labs done by Calvin Zito and Jim Hankins: http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Around-the-Storage-Block-Blog/Part-1-Updates-to-the-X1000-and-X3000-Network-Storage-families/ba-p/83177
If you want a ton of great features, high reliability and the best bang for your storage dollar, this is it. Checkout the overview blog I posted a few weeks ago to clearly see why Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 is a contender.
Today at 11:00am PST there is a webcast with IBM to discuss their Windows NAS product line. We would like to welcome you to come and join John Donovan and Scott Johnson (that’s me!) to discuss the capabilities and configurations that are possible in this cost effective and capable platform. IBM is one of the top storage vendors on the planet and it is great to have these solutions on the market. If you are interested in IBM gear and are looking for more cost-effective ways to deliver industry-leading file and block services, then I highly recommend this webcast.
Register Here: https://www.techwebonlineevents.com/ars/eventregistration.do?mode=eventreg&F=1004517&K=CAA1DC
NAS Solutions Explained: Reduce Cost and Improve Manageability
Date: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 Time: 11:00 AM PT / 2:00 PM ET Duration: 60 minutes
Today, over 7 million developers are writing application software for Windows using the most popular frameworks and development tools on the planet. Network Attached Storage (NAS) appliances are growing at 20% a year and the world is preparing to consume thousands of petabytes in the next few years.
This webcast presents a comparison between Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 (WSS) on IBM DS3500 Storage Systems, and other pricier NAS solutions. Take an in-depth look at how Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 delivers superior performance, reliability, application compatibility and ease of use.
Attend this webcast to review:
Reserve your seat today!
Featured Speakers:
John Donovan, WW Offering Manager, System x Express, IBM Systems & Technology Group
Scott M. Johnson, Program Manager II, Windows File Server Team, Microsoft
I’ll post more about IBM’s solutions after the webcast today. Have a great day and hope to see you on the call!
Cheers, Scott M. Johnson Windows NAS Program Manager
The momentum for Windows Storage Server is growing! Take the awesome network storage and branch office features in the OS and when they are combined with hardware, software and services available from top manufacturers, they create high-performance storage solutions. Checkout the latest release from Xiotech, these guys make some sweet storage blades called the Intelligent Storage Element ”ISE” This technology delivers reliability, performance, and scalability for creating cost-effective storage for data centers. Xiotech's ISE Network Attached Storage (NAS) solution is a scale-out file server for private cloud, high-performance computing (HPC), and other performance-intensive file serving operations. When they front-end ISE storage with Windows Storage Server 2008 R2, you get a wide range of storage features and great compatibility using the most advanced file sharing protocols Microsoft has to offer.
Here are some tidbits from their website here: http://www.xiotech.com/products-services/ise-nas/
ISE NAS Controller Node Overview
The ISE NAS controller node is a 1U storage server that when combined with ISE delivers scalable, high availability, multi-protocol file services, like: CIFS/SMBv1, SMBv2.1, NFSv3, HTTP, FTP and iSCSI targets to many different clients: Windows, Unix, Linux, Hypervisor, Mac OS X and iSCSI initiators. ISE NAS can be scaled up from a single controller node to geographically dispersed multinodal configurations to provide a scale-out NAS architecture capable of managing unstructured data growth globally.
Features at a Glance
Thanks, Scott
I just saw this on the SCCM blog, this might be helpful!
http://blogs.technet.com/configmgrteam/archive/2009/11/09/configuration-manager-support-announcements-for-november-2009.aspx
Windows Storage Server 2008 is now supported on System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 and SP2
System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 and SP2 now support the Windows Storage Server 2008 operating systems for client installation. Site system roles of a standard distribution point and a branch distribution point are supported. Installations of the administrator console or other site system roles are not supported.
No software updates are required!
Checkout these new papers from the Windows Storage Server Product Team:
Windows Storage Server 2008 Architecture and Deployment Paper This white paper describes the features and technologies in Windows Storage Server, and how to create secure, extensible, scalable, and highly-available storage solutions, including file services, iSCSI block input/output (I/O), Web services, and print services workloads.
PDF Version
DOC Version
Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2008: Meeting the Storage Challenges of Today’s Businesses For the system/storage administrator, managing an organization’s growing wealth of information has become an increasingly complex, high- pressure undertaking. This paper discusses the file and data storage challenges that face businesses today.
XPS Version
Microsoft Corporation and HP: Using Network Attached Storage for Reliable Backup and Recovery
This paper compares tape-, disk-, and network-based storage technologies in use today. We will also discuss ways in which HP servers built on the Windows Storage Server 2008 platform leverage NAS to streamline management operations, lower the total cost of ownership (TCO), and offer a rapid backup and restore solution using disk-to-disk backup solutions. PDF Version
Microsoft Corporation and Dell: Using Network Attached Storage for Reliable Backup and Recovery
This paper compares tape-, disk-, and network-based storage technologies in use today. We will also discuss ways in which Dell servers built on the Windows Storage Server 2008 platform leverage NAS to streamline management operations, lower the total cost of ownership (TCO), and offer a rapid backup and restore solution using disk-to-disk backup solutions.
Hi folks, Lots of things have been happening since my last blog article. We released Windows Storage Server 2012 to Microsoft hardware partners in September 2012 and I’ve been traveling far-and-wide to train engineers and support staff. I wound-up the first half of my world tour at the HP Discover Conference in Frankfurt where they announced 7 new models in the StoreEasy portfolio. Then I spent a few weeks at home over the holidays, and was back on the road for more Windows Storage Server 2012 training in Japan and China. Check out this cool picture of a Windows Server 2012 ad inside the Shinagawa train station in Tokyo!
Now that I’m back, I have time to catch up on things—blogs included. Stay tuned for a number of posts over the next few weeks, including several on new Windows Storage Server 2012 offerings from our storage OEMs. I’m also thinking of posts on cluster-in-a-box offerings, backup/recovery/dedup solutions for Windows Storage Server, and how RAID vendors can take advantage of SMI-S and SMAPI providers to manage the SAS, iSCSI or Fibre Channel storage. I’ll also post some reviews and lab reports and links to storage benchmarks. Got an idea for a topic? Please let me know!
The Windows Storage Server team will be at #MSTechEd all week, the Microsoft Technical Education conference with thousands of people getting the latest technical details and interacting with Microsoft product experts.
If you're attending TechEd 2011 this week, here are sessions from the File Server team:
WSV313 - Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3 for Application Storage, Diskless Boot, and More! Speaker(s): Jian (Jane) Yan Tuesday, May 17 at 5:00 PM, room: B101 http://northamerica.msteched.com/topic/details/WSV313
WSV317 - Windows Server 2008 R2 File Services Consolidation: Technology Update Speaker: Jose Barreto Wednesday, 5/18 at 10:15am, room: Georgia Ballrm 3 http://northamerica.msteched.com/topic/details/WSV317 Detailed description at http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2011/05/16/teched-2011-session-wsv317-windows-server-2008-r2-file-services-consolidation-technology-update.aspx
WSV317-R - Windows Server 2008 R2 File Services Consolidation: Technology Update (repeat) Speaker: Jose Barreto Thursday, 5/19 at 10:15am, Room: Georgia Ballrm 2 http://northamerica.msteched.com/topic/details/WSV317-R Detailed description at http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2011/05/16/teched-2011-session-wsv317-windows-server-2008-r2-file-services-consolidation-technology-update.aspx
WSV318 - Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Technical Overview Speakers: Joel Garcia, Scott M. Johnson Wednesday, May 18 at 3:15 PM, room: B309 http://northamerica.msteched.com/topic/details/WSV318
WSV323 - Information Governance for Unstructured Data Using the Data Classification Toolkit for Windows Server 2008 R2 Speakers: Gunjan Jain, Nir Ben Zvi Wednesday, May 18 at 10:15 AM, room: C206 http://northamerica.msteched.com/topic/details/WSV323
Also make sure to visit the Windows Server booth for File Services (WSV 13).