What Analysts are Saying...
Terri McClure, Enterprise Strategy Group, March 2, 2011
quoted in eWEEK, Dataram Rolls Out New HA Optimizer for Midrange SANs
"The focus of the new appliance is to help users get more virtual server density on physical machines. That's been an issue; our research indicates broad—but not deep—virtualization adoption. In other words, lots of companies are doing server virtualization, but not a lot of their environment is virtualized.
One of the issues is scalability and performance of the storage infrastructure. There are a number of companies striving to help solve this issue in different ways, but we see an emerging ecosystem of appliances that sit between the storage and physical servers that can provide performance acceleration services to the virtual machines."
This differs from how traditional storage vendors solve the problem with solid-state solutions that can only accelerate for the storage system they are a part of. That should help with the density issue as IT can get a higher number of virtual machines on each physical machine to drive greater efficiencies."
Mark Peters, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group, February 28, 2011
“I/O intensive applications can be just as prevalent in midrange IT user environments as in ‘enterprise’ shops,” said Mark Peters, Senior Analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. “Sheer IT scale does not hold a monopoly on complexity or I/O hunger, and so midrange users can often need the same sorts of function – high availability and no installation downtime for example – as larger ‘enterprise’ operations. Dataram’s latest XcelaSAN can already help remove ‘performance pain’ in FC SANs and now is enhanced with precisely these advanced capabilities, as well as other things – such as no need for software or system modifications, and an easy GUI – that the often resource-constrained mid-sized user will invariably appreciate.”
Walker Blount, Storage Systems Analyst, Web-Feet Research, February 28, 2011
“The subtle beauty of the Dataram XcelaSAN Model 100 is mid-level enterprise users have the most cost-effective and true plug-and-play fast storage appliance (450,000 IOPS), resulting in ease of integration for existing enterprise architectures. It can be up and running in less than two hours in a Fibre Channel server system,” said Walker Blount, storage systems analyst at Web-Feet Research, a memory and storage research firm, “Users are looking for solutions that are easy to implement and that provide real cost savings – XcelaSAN delivers on both.”
Jim Handy, Objective-Analysis, quoted in SearchStorage.com article, February 28, 2011
quoted in SearchStorage.com - Dataram's SAN performance accelerator gets HA capabilities
Jim Handy, an analyst at Objective Analysis, said what makes Dataram's flash and DRAM cache appliance unique is that the solid-state disk and cache management comes in one box. "Typically, what you will find, you buy the SSD and you buy the cache software as different components," Handy said. "The easiest thing the XcelaSAN box lets you do is you can plug it in and it just starts to work. You don't have to install any software or anything."
Handy said the company that comes to market first with a cache appliance with high availability will have a firmer foothold in this space. "The first to market will have an easier time entering than any follow-on," he said. "It's not easy for an IT manager to qualify, so if they qualify one, they won't want to spend the time to qualify a second time."
quoted in eWEEK, Dataram Rolls Out New HA Optimizer for Midrange SANs
"Dataram seems to have important customer support, and the product is unique. It should have a good chance of success. They had a good idea when the XcelaSAN was first introduced but appear to have missed the mark a bit, and worked with customers to get it right. The fact that customers were willing to pitch in and help with it shows a good bit of support, which I would read to mean that the product should do well when introduced."
IDC, December 2009
Jeff Janukowicz, Research Manager, Hard Disk Drive Components and Solid State Drives
“The enterprise SSD market is poised to continue growing as vendors look to accelerate application performance and improve overall system productivity. Solutions, like Dataram with its proprietary software and cache algorithms, combined with a channel partner program will provide customers with easy access to high performance solid state storage technology."
IDC Product Flash, October 2009
Jeff Janukowicz, Research Manager, Hard Disk Drive Components and Solid State Drives
“…IDC believes that the ability to provide dynamic allocation of the data (as Dataram does with its proprietary software and cache algorithms) is critical for increased SSD adoption……Dataram is now back in the storage market with a product that promises to eliminate the traditional purchase of underutilized disk capacity in the quest for improving application performance.”
Web-Feet Research, September 30, 2009
Alan Niebel, Founder and CEO; Walter Blount, Vice President, Storage Research
“…This appliance provides for easy integration and interoperability to existing storage systems. Dataram’s approach provides a caching appliance that is inserted between the server and storage array…”
Channel Web Magazine Online www.crn.com Monday, Sept. 28, 2009
Scott Hansen, Sales Manager for Enterprise Solutions, Melillo Consulting
“Financial firms can see big performance increases, and can use smaller arrays than before and actually save money…With Dataram, you can run all traffic through the appliance, or filter specific applications…As a channel partner, Dataram is excellent, they help us in a lot of cases to help customers save money, even before the economic downturn. XcelaSAN is an extension of what they already do.”
Enterprise Strategy Group, September 28, 2009
Mark Peters, Senior Analyst
“Dataram has years of experience, which is evident in the sound mix of technology and capability in its new XcelaSAN offering. The sweet spot for its intended mid-market users is a combination of performance, value, and ease. By delivering immediate performance and ROI improvements with its sophisticated and automated cache and flash integration – which also precludes the need for a wholesale storage system replacement – the company is aimed in just the right place.”
StorageSearch.com, September 28, 2009
Zsolt Kerekes, Editor
“The search for a self tuning agnostic SSD software layer which sits between a SAN server and conventional rotating disk bulk storage has been the Holy Grail of SSD oems for over a decade. None have actually achieved it - till now.”
“…a viable route for mid-budget user enterprises - who have been neglected by SSD vendors for economic reasons - to join the march of the SSD Revolution…”
