Stories by Lucas Mearian

IBM hits both ends of storage market

IBM Corp. will soon be offering new low- and high-end storage arrays aimed at challenging rivals such as Hitachi Ltd. and Dell Computer Corp. with faster devices that provide lower ownership costs.

Nasdaq set to launch $170M trading system

After three years and US$170 million spent on systems development that included more than 200 new servers, The Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. yesterday said it is prepared to launch its new SuperMontage electronic order display and execution system on July 29.

IBM touting Fiber Connectivity in hardware offerings

IBM Corp. announced Tuesday that its virtual tape servers will soon be able to connect disk storage to mainframes via Fiber Connectivity (FICON), a move that could increase performance by about 75 percent.

Carlson builds IP SAN with global reach

US hotel, restaurant and travel giant Carlson Companies Inc. next week will finish deployment of what is arguably the largest storage area network (SAN) based on both Fibre Channel and Internet protocol. The SAN will give Carlson the ability to link offices anywhere in the world to databases within its headquarters data center.

Sun to offer 2G bit/sec. SAN support

Sun Microsystems announced a storage-area network (SAN) suite of hardware and software products that support 2G bit/sec. Fibre Channel networks, doubling the data transfer rates of its current SANs.

IBM technology could let desktops go diskless

IBM Corp. announced Thursday an emerging technology that would allow PCs and servers to access operating systems via IP networks, which could eventually lead to computers devoid of hard drives.

Brokerages resist NYSE call for electronic order capture

A proposed rule change by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) requiring the electronic capture of all stock orders before they leave the trading desk has Wall Street concerned that it will cost millions of dollars to implement and place too great an onus on the IT departments of brokerages that still record large stock orders on paper.

Intel kills InfiniBand chip program

In a move that some experts say is a blow to the emerging InfiniBand market, Intel Corp. yesterday announced to partners that it has killed plans to produce silicon chips that would allow for high-speed server clustering and communication with other devices, such as storage arrays.

HP lays out storage plans, product mergers

The post-merger Hewlett-Packard announced plans today for a new storage division, dubbed Network Storage Solutions (NSS), that will include merging some products while phasing others out completely during the next five years.

Merrill Lynch CTO sees opportunity in economic downturn

There's never been a better time to play "Let's Make a Deal" with vendors, according to John McKinley, chief technology officer at Merrill Lynch & Co. In terms of IT infrastructure, McKinley said the industry is undergoing a broad-based deflation period where the unit cost of almost everything is going down year over year.

IBM develops 1TB tape cartridge

IBM Corp. has built a tape cartridge capable of storing the data capacity equivalent of 750,000 floppy disks, a tenfold increase on the capacity of today's tape devices, the company said yesterday.

Brokers seek regulatory push for T+1 compliance

The financial services industry will spend US$8 billion during the next four years -- $2 billion to $4 billion more than it collectively spent on the Y2k problem -- in order to clear trades in a single day vs. the current three-day cycle, known as T+3, according to the Securities Industry Association (SIA).

IBM's Sanford discusses competition

Increased competition from vendors such as EMC Corp., Network Appliance Inc. and Compaq Computer Corp., as well as demand from customers for better storage management software and services instead of hardware, is pushing IBM to rethink its strategy in the months and years ahead. Linda Sanford, senior vice president and group executive at IBM's Storage Systems Group, spoke this week with Computerworld about future products and rumors that Big Blue may be looking to purchase EMC.

Hitachi and others break storage capacity barriers

A number of storage technology breakthroughs were announced this week, including the doubling of hard disk and tape memory capacity, vendors said.

Storage by the rules

Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest independent natural gas companies in the U.S. uses about two-dozen storage management policies. The policies determine what information the firm wants to keep and where it wants to store it.