On Friday, IBM announced the general availability of the N3700. Here is an exerpt from the press release:
ARMONK, NY — Aug 2, 2005 – IBM today announced an array of new storage offerings that further broadens its portfolio of solutions expressly designed for the fast-growing small and medium-sized business (SMB) market.
The first is an entry-level storage disk offering, the first product resulting from the recent IBM alliance with Network Appliance (NasdaqNM:NTAP – News), followed by a roadmap to introduce an expanded product line in the fourth quarter of 2005.
The first product resulting from the alliance, the IBM TotalStorage N3700, is designed to offer an economical and robust network attached storage (NAS) solution for small and medium-sized businesses of less than 1,000 employees, yet is versatile enough to be used in large, distributed enterprises with remote office and branch office storage requirements. The device also incorporates iSCSI technology, a segment that is tracking the growth of SMB storage and is predicted to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 107% through 2009, according to analyst firm IDC.
Link: IBM TotalStorage N Series: Overview – IBM Network Attached Storage
Link: N3700 Press Release
Today was my first day in the Software Testing Foundations course at IBM (also known as the Certified Tester-Foundational Level Training course). The course is taught by Dale Perris who works for Software Quality Engineering. This course prepares me for the ISTQB*™ Certified Tester—Foundation Level exam, which I will take on Thursday afternoon. So far, some very interesting topics are being covered. If you’re interested in the material covered, check out the ISTQB syllabus, or SQE’s course outline.
* ISTQB – International Software Testing Qualifications Board (www.istqb.org)
Since I work on the Brocade SAN Test team within IBM, I thought I would share the products I’ve been testing with my readers.
The first product is a new director class switch. It is known as the IBM TotalStorage SAN256B (2109-M48). This is a 4Gbps industry-standard Fibre Channel switch capable of 256 ports in a single domain. The second product is a new fabric switch. It is known as the IBM TotalStorage SAN16B-2 (2005-B16). This switch also supports 4Gbps and is scalable to 16 total ports. This smaller switch is intended for use in small to medium-sized SANs.
More Info: IBM TotalStorage SAN256B: Overview – IBM TotalStorage SAN
More Info: IBM TotalStorage SAN16B-2: Overview – IBM TotalStorage SAN
Today was volunteer day for me. I signed up through IBM to go volunteer at the local Catalina Magnet High School. We moved a bunch of old 300-400 MHz computers out of a lab and moved some new computers from across the campus into it. It was actually pretty fun, even though it was hot outside…I could really use the physical exercise. 
Apparently IBM is now preparing to sell a Thinkpad Tablet PC. It’s amazing, I found this out on Robert Scoble’s blog. For those who don’t know, Robert Scoble is a “Microsoft Geek Blogger.” You would think that since I work at IBM, I would find out about this internally.
Link: eWeek: IBM Develops ThinkPad Tablet PC.
In a recent internal letter from one of our VP’s:
Through the World Community Grid, IBM is helping researchers and scientists find a cure for HIV/AIDS, malaria, SARS and many of the deadliest diseases known to humankind. Join more than 60,000 people across the planet, who are already part of this grid by signing up for this innovative program today. As one team, we can help solve some of the most serious problems facing the world.
After you sign up, your computer joins a grid of more than 90,000 machines that work together to analyze problems that require a large amount of computing power – such as the unfolding of proteins. There is no further effort required on your part after signing up. Reaching out to the most vulnerable people has never been this simple.
Visit: World Community Grid
View: Team IBM Tucson
Hockey. This would have been a great game to see:
IBM failed to end Microsoft’s winning streak in their charity hockey game over the weekend in Seattle, falling 9-5 to the hometown team.
Source: seattlepi.com Microsoft Blog: Microsoft 9, IBM 5
The IBM annual report for 2004 has been posted. This is a week or two old, but I forgot to post about it when it came out. My group, IBM Systems and Technology group is up 8.8% (only +1.6 for Storage Systems)…check out page 24:
Source: IBM 2004 Annual Report
The Dutch Chambers of Commerce is one of the first to implement IBM’s new high-end storage system, the DS8000. Here is an exerpt from the article on SearchStorage:
“Because the Chambers of Commerce supports 21 different chambers, being able to partition fixed storage for each chamber at a fixed price was important,” said Jouhre. The ability to share storage through partitioning is something EMC’s Symmetrix does not do, and was the main reason the Dutch Chambers chose IBM over EMC, according to Jouhre.
Source: IBM DS8000 gaining ground
Sometimes hard work does pay off. Here is a press release about the product that I’m currently working on:
ARMONK, NY — Feb 28, 2005 — IBM today announced that powerful models of the breakthrough IBM TotalStorage DS8000 series, which enables customers to simplify their storage infrastructure and support business continuity, are shipping in volume. The systems use open standards and new virtualization technologies to help clients easily link storage devices and software from different companies.
“Clients in a variety of industries worldwide are looking to the TotalStorage DS8000 for their business-critical, data center storage,” said Andy Monshaw, General Manager, IBM Storage. “IBM is the only vendor to incorporate the game-changing POWER5 technology in our storage systems which allows us to help clients simplify their environments.”
Source: IBM Press
