Okapi Introduces Low-Cost Software To Build iSCSI Appliances

Okapi Software

The company, a start-up which in August introduced its first product, a series of low-cost iSCSI storage servers, has essentially unbundled the software from those servers for use by channel partners who want to build and configure their own devices, said John Matze, CEO and president of Okapi.

Customers looking to deploy a low-cost SAN without the need to learn Fibre Channel can have the software, called ipXpress, installed on an old PC or server, or even on a new white-box server, at which point the device becomes an iSCSI disk appliance, Matze said.

The software allows connection to up three channels, each of which can connect to multiple hard drives, Matze said. Optional RAID cards can be used to extend the number of drives. "It allows storage to be centralized in one location," he said. "For instance, one device with three hard drives could serve three servers."

Price for the software is $499 with IDE/ATA hard-drive support or $999 with SCSI hard-drive support. The software comes bundled for a limited time with an Intel Gigabit Ethernet card, Matze said. How long that card is bundled depends on solution providers, he said. "I expect as they get used to it, they will source their own cards and ask us to drop the price," he said.

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The software and card come with a 30-day, no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee, Matze said. "We don't want any excuses for anyone not trying iSCSI. . . . There's a lot of [fear, uncertainty and doubt out there, but who really knows until they try it," he said.

While Mark Somerville, director of field sales at Chi, a Warrensville Heights, Ohio-based solution provider, has yet to try the Okapi offering, his company is already offering IP-based storage to clients, including products from FalconStor.

"Without question, IP is the way the market is going," Somerville said. "Fibre Channel is too expensive for most companies. TRW and other Fortune 500 companies can afford to drop a half-million-dollars into a SAN, but most companies can't."

What is most thrilling about the IP storage space is one can walk into any LAN and add a SAN without adding any servers, Somerville said. "Just add pure storage, because of the IP connection," he said. "The biggest challenge is getting customers to grasp the concept of IP storage. In fact, a lot of people in my industry don't understand it."