Certance Unveils Disk-To-Disk-To-Tape Appliance For SMBs

The Costa Mesa, Calif.-based company's new CP 3100 is aimed at providing data protection to small and midsize businesses, said Ryan Malone, senior marketing manager at the company.

The CP 3100 includes 160 Gbytes to 1 Tbyte of internal hard-drive capacity, dual Ultra160 SCSI controllers, dual Gigabit Ethernet controllers, an embedded Linux controller, Apache WebServer software, and an option for a Certance DAT 72 tape drive, Malone said.

Unlike similar appliances from other vendors, the CP 3100 is backup software-independent and instead works with whatever applications customers currently use, said Malone. "So any software equipped to run DDS-4 or DAT 72 tape drives will work with the CP 3100," he said.

The CP 3100 currently includes a SCSI interface but is slated to come in a native iSCSI version early next year. Since the iSCSI function depends on software, early models will be able to be upgraded to iSCSI at that time, Malone said.

For solution providers, the CP 3100 is a turnkey solution that offers 20 percent to 25 percent hardware margins in addition to services revenue, said Malone. "It's as simple as installing a DDS-4 or DAT 72 tape drive," he said. "It gives VARs a chance to revisit customers."

The CP 3100 is priced starting at $1,499 when configured with 160 Gbytes of hard-drive capacity.