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Open Source Storage: Low-Cost but High-Performance

By Dick Weisinger

Open Source is touching virtually every kind of software application, and storage software is no exception. What makes open source storage software different though is that companies are apprehensive to try it out — at least using it directly. Company data is sensitive and most companies are very risk-adverse as to how their data will be managed.

That isn’t stopping a cottage industry of small vendors from scooping up open source storage software and pairing it with low-cost hardware to create lower price-point storage appliances than brand-name competitors. Sun Microsystem’s Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage Systems and embedded versions of Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform offer great storage capabilities.

Sun’s Storage System Software is leading the way in creating this software niche. Vendors adopt Sun’s software to embed in their hardware — and Sun can sign up these vendors on software maintenance contracts. Sun’s technology is very competitive with non open-source vendors. It provides easy administration, end-to-end data integrity and scalability.

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