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Written by yanglu September 27, 2008 16:41

Blogs unafraid to get into the nitty gritty, bits and the bytes of technology. Another addition to StorNext 3.0 is Dynamic Resource Allocation (DRA), which increases uptime by enabling online service operations. It allows customers to scale their storage - adding new storage capacity or transparently swapping out disk arrays during hardware upgrades - while the system is active. DRA also enables rapid data sharing among servers by virtualizing the underlying storage components. A function known as File System Expansion allows capacity upgrades without disrupting business operations. Disk capacity can be added to an existing StorNext file system on the fly. The customer defines new LUNs and makes them available across the SAN to the MDC and StorNext clients. All I/O currently in progress remains unaffected during the expansion. Another feature, Move Stripe Group Data, permits data to be moved from one disk volume to another. If, for instance, an array doesn't have enough throughput or capacity, data can be quickly shifted onto another array.

This function can also be utilized to smoothly retire older arrays."StorNext can automatically move data from one stripe group to other stripe groups," says Moffitt. "During migration, the file system is left online and read/write operations occur normally." Distributed LAN Client (DLC) is the third major area of StorNext upgrade. It enables applications on the LAN to access a shared pool of storage faster, and with a higher level of resiliency, than most traditional network sharing methods can provide. Using clustered gateways for access and an optimized communication protocol for performance, LAN Client extends data sharing, and delivers load balancing and transparent I/O failover."StorNext Distributed LAN Client allows LAN-based servers to connect to via clustered gateway systems," says Moffitt. "To maintain the highest level of throughput, they only service LAN I/O and do not run applications." Nevertheless, the risks to the outlook are now more on the down side, given uncertainties about the global financial system, the U.S. outlook, and investors' risk appetite, including for emerging markets.

Twelve-month inflation is now projected to rise through the end of this year, reflecting exogenous shocks, including a jump in global food prices, unusually cold weather conditions in Chile, and disruptions in energy supply. Given the strong growth momentum, with excess capacity in the economy gradually vanishing and unemployment at historically low levels, the Banco Centrale has appropriately raised interest rates in recent months. This should insure that inflation expectations remain well-anchored around the 3 percent target and that food and energy price shocks do not spill over into other sectors. Looking ahead, with risks to the outlook more on the downside, the future monetary policy path will need to depend on economic and financial development in the coming months.

The strong improvement in the government's financial position in recent years has allowed a moderate reduction in the target for the structural surplus rule. We support this reduction and commend the government for keeping overall spending increases consistent with macroeconomic stability, as well as for the efforts to maintain the high quality of public spending in Chile. Keeping a small positive surplus target is appropriate, as it will allow the build up of some reserves to address future liabilities such as in the context of the planned reform of the pension system. Let me perhaps elaborate on the impact of the recent global financial turbulence. This impact has been relatively mild in Chile, both compared with most other countries in the region and also with Chile's own past experience. In our view, this is really a strong testimony to the very robust macroeconomic framework that Chile has built over the past two decades, with strong cushions against adverse shocks--a sound fiscal position, low public debt, and independent central bank, high international reserves, and a flexible exchange rate.

The past few weeks have also served to underscore how resilient Chile's financial markets have become in the face of global turbulence. Threats have widened relatively little. The exchange rate has been fairly stable, and in line with fundamentals. And the interbank market has continued to function in a normal way. This resilience reflects a healthy banking system and strong corporate balance sheets, again the result of Chile's excellent economic policy framework. Therefore, assuming no further major unexpected shocks or a global downturn, we believe that growth and employment in Chile will remain relatively strong, benefiting also from Chile's diversified export structure and continued brisk commodity demand. The LAN Client communicates with the MDC to determine file location, disk allocation and buffering. Once the LAN Client knows a file's location, it passes on data request. The gateway system retrieves the data and passes it to the distributed LAN Client. While similar to CIFS / NFS sharing used in NAS, DLC differs by utilizing a specialized TCP/IP protocol designed for higher per-stream throughput. Single GigE connections using LAN Client have been observed at 110 MBps, a marked improvement over NFS or CIFS. Additionally, this protocol balances I/O across available gateways to avoid "hot spots" which could bottleneck throughput. It can also fail over I/O between gateways if one is unavailable.

All this adds up to an improved storage management platform for Quantum's customers."Thousands of existing customers in the rich media and HPC markets rely on StorNext software for fast access to shared file systems, improved workflow and automated HSM," says Brian Garrett, an analyst with the Enterprise Strategy Group of Milford, MA. "The new and improved StorNext will also be appreciated by enterprises looking for a better way to share and manage unstructured digital assets."