QLogic, Cisco and NetApp Corporations commissioned Demartek to perform a hands-on evaluation of new Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) technology and to participate in the FCoE Test Drive Event, held June 4 - 6, 2008 at the Manchester Hyatt in in San Diego, California. The Demartek reports from these activities are now available.

Dennis Martin, President of Demartek, gave Part 2 of a short "15 Minutes of Fame" presentation at the Rocky Mountain Windows Technology User Group (www.rmwtug.org) July 2008 meetings. Part 2 includes review of hardware and operating systems used and test results.

Dennis Martin, President of Demartek, gave a short "15 Minutes of Fame" presentation at the Rocky Mountain Windows Technology User Group (RMWTUG) June 2008 meetings. Part 1 of this presentation includes the background of SMB 1.0 and SMB 2.0 in various versions of Microsoft Windows and its effect on network file copy speeds, especially in WAN settings.

The Rocky Mountain Windows Technology User Group (RMWTUG) announces that Dennis Martin, President of Demartek, has been elected President of the RMWTUG at its May 2008 meetings. "I'm very excited to serve the group as President again," said Mr. Martin. "There are so many exciting things happening with the technology these days, and there are many equally exciting opportunities for the group. The members expressed interest in many topics at the recent May meetings, which we plan to address in the upcoming months. We already have a great line-up of interesting presentations for this summer, and are looking forward to the rest of the year."

Dennis Martin, President of Demartek, will speak about Power Efficiency in computers and about 64-bit Microsoft Windows platforms to the Rocky Mountain Windows Technology User Group (RMWTUG) at their May 2008 meetings. The Denver chapter meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 20 at 7:00 p.m. and the Colorado Springs chapter meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 21 at 7:00 p.m. These meetings are free and open to the public.

Emulex Corporation commissioned Demartek to evaluate its Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs) and compare them with recent HBA offerings from Brocade. The evaluation includes a variety of topics including the installation experience, operating system support, HBA management, HBA performance and others. This report includes actual steps taken to install and use the HBAs and the respective management software. This report also includes a basic performance evaluation of the respective HBAs.

Pillar Data Systems commissioned Demartek to compare the drive rebuild times to hot spares of the Pillar Data Systems Axiom 500, EMC CX3-40 and Network Appliance FAS3050c storage systems. Due to the interest in drive rebuild times of storage systems with large-capacity drives, the storage systems tested were populated with four drive shelves of 500-GB SATA disk drives. Each system had at least 52 500-GB disk drives. This report provides a complete description of the drive rebuild tests, shows the results of the drive rebuild tests and discusses the architecture of the Pillar Data Systems Axiom 500 storage system.

COLORADO SPRINGS and ARVADA, Colo., Feb. 20 -- Olocity Corporation, a leader in delivering open standards-based systems management technology and services, has partnered with the testing lab Demartek to provide the first independent testing services for IT vendors implementing emerging industry standards for systems management like SMI-S, DASH, SMASH, and CDM. Olabs is focused on helping IT vendors streamline the task of implementing these standards in products while simultaneously ensuring that these products succeed in production systems deployment. Olocity provides the first complete solution for IT vendors implementing these revolutionary standards with development tools, consulting, testing, and project management services.

EMC Corporation commissioned Demartek to perform a hands-on evaluation of EMC's new entry-level CLARiiON AX4 iSCSI storage system. This evaluation included installing and deploying the AX4 in the Demartek lab facilities and reviewing several features including system installation configuration, provisioning storage to hosts, capacity expansion, data migration within the system, and creation of snapshot copies. All features evaluated by Demartek are included with the base CLARiiON AX4 system. This report shows the actual steps taken to install and use the AX4 storage system. Screen shots are included.

Demartek is now publishing selected reports in non-English languages. The Demartek News page includes the complete list of reports in all languages.

EMC Corporation commissioned Demartek to perform a hands-on evaluation of EMC's new entry-level Celerra NS20 multi-protocol storage platform. This evaluation included installing and deploying the NS20 and reviewing several features including multiple-protocol connectivity, Celerra Manager Wizards, snapshot integration, automated volume management, and thin provisioning. Demartek was especially interested in the ease of installation and ease-of-use of the NS20 and its rich feature set. This report shows the actual steps taken to install and use the NS20 storage platform. Screen shots are included.

In an effort to provide an improved experience for the growing iSCSI storage market, Microsoft and its storage partners have created various iSCSI target solutions for the Microsoft Windows Server environment. These solutions include iSCSI targets based on Microsoft's iSCSI target software and storage partner hardware, and iSCSI targets based on storage partner iSCSI target software and hardware. This paper provides an update on the state of iSCSI storage technology, specifics on several Microsoft storage partner solutions, including the deployment of each solution for specific solutions such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS). This report is designed for managers of IT departments and system administrators who are exploring the possible benefits of iSCSI storage solutions or who are looking for actual deployment examples of iSCSI storage solutions.

The Demartek iSCSI Storage presentation given at the May 2007 RMWTUG meetings is now online.

Dennis Martin, President of Demartek, will speak about Internet SCSI (iSCSI) storage to the Rocky Mountain Windows Technology User Group (RMWTUG) at their May 2007 meetings. The Denver chapter meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 15 at 7:00 p.m. and the Colorado Springs chapter meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 16 at 7:00 p.m. The public is invited.

For a growing number of organizations, email archiving solutions have become an ideal and recommended way to retain and ensure access to corporate records that are created, transmitted and stored in email systems. These email archiving solutions enhance a company's ability to comply with regulatory and internal standards for data retention and the ability to find data when needed, either for internal use or for legal discovery. However, individual users find some centrally-managed email archiving solutions too rigid to adapt to individual or departmental needs. Some users prefer the flexibility they previously enjoyed with storing email in local PST or NSF files. An email archiving solution that can provide the right balance of user flexibility and familiar experience with centrally-managed email archiving functions can be a great advantage to an organization. This white paper examines the new User Directed Archiving functions of EMC EmailXtender and its blend of user-organized folders with central email archiving management.

Emulex Corporation commissioned Demartek to evaluate the performance of Emulex Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) in the VMware ESX Server environment, and compare this performance to the equivalent QLogic HBA. Storage performance characteristics and implementation details are different when running in virtual environments such as VMware with guest operating systems as compared to running a native operating system on a server. Emulex sought an independent view of its Fibre Channel HBA performance in a VMware environment. This report shows the results in a four virtual machine environment.

Emulex Corporation commissioned Demartek to evaluate the ease of installation and use of its HBAnyware software, and to compare its ease of installation and use against the equivalent software from QLogic Corporation. HBAnyware software manages host bus adapters (HBAs) manufactured by Emulex. This report shows the actual steps taken to install and use the HBAs and the management software associated with those HBAs.

Demartek adds Intel Dual-Core and Quad-Core processors to its online Intel processor comparison database. Access to this Demartek online database is free of charge with the "TestDrive" username.

LSI Logic designed its Simplicity Storage Manager to be simple to install and use, especially for the part-time storage administrator. In its lab facilities, Demartek evaluated the installation and ease of use of Simplicity Storage Manager for managing the LSI 1333 Serial-attached SCSI (SAS) storage system. This paper includes the time and effort required to install Simplicity Storage Manager and manage the storage associated with it. Simplicity Storage Manager is designed to manage current and future storage arrays targeted at small and medium-sized businesses.

Microsoft and its storage partners have determined to make Storage Area Networks (SANs) simple to deploy and manage by creating the Simple SAN program. This Demartek white paper examines the goals and accomplishments of the Simple SAN program, including actual deployment of Fibre Channel and iSCSI Simple SAN solutions. This paper also discusses the new File Server Resource Manager (FSRM), and the basic storage resource management (SRM) features it provides.

Demartek has added CA Message Manager, formerly known as iLumin Assentor Enterprise, to the Demartek email archiving software product comparison database. The Demartek email archiving product comparison database now includes four email archiving products: C2C Archive One Policy 4.2, CA Message Manager 3.4, Mimosa Systems NearPoint 1.1, and ZipLip Unified Email Archival Suite 5.1.39.

Demartek has increased the number of feature criteria for its email archiving software comparison to more than 110 features. The new features include information about language support, industry-specific lexicons, and email surveillance features that many email archiving products provide.

Demartek has added a free sample version of its email archiving software product comparison. This free sample includes a subset of the feature criteria from the full comparison. Not all the fields are populated in the free sample version. The full email archiving software comparison is available to subscribers. An overview, pricing and FAQ page provide information about the interactive reports for subscribers.

Demartek publishes its interactive email archiving software product comparison. The first three products in this comparison are C2C Archive One Policy, Mimosa Systems NearPoint, and ZipLip Unified Email Archival Suite. This interactive online database includes more than 90 feature criteria for each product, including pricing, architecture and many more. Additional email archiving products will be added to this online product comparison shortly.

Demartek is currently developing a comparison of email archiving software solutions. This comparison will be published in December 2005. To receive an email notification when this comparison is published, send an email message to info@demartek.com with the words Email Archiving in the subject or message body.