Network Appliance, Inc. (Nasdaq:NTAP), a provider of enterprise network storage solutions, announced recently NetApp's iSCSI solution is now supported in IBM DB2 Universal Database environments. With iSCSI-enabled NetApp unified storage solutions, DB2 customers can leverage the benefits of a simple and more affordable storage area network (SAN) infrastructure. This in turn accelerates their transition to networked storage through cost-effective data center storage management tools designed for their distributed environments and applications.

Network Appliance iSCSI-enabled unified storage solutions allow customers to consolidate the data storage for their distributed IBM DB2 environments with affordable SANs using pervasive Ethernet infrastructure and equipment. This is especially appealing in Windows, Linux and emerging high-density blade server environments, where simplicity, flexibility, and price/performance are critical business requirements. Solutions based on iSCSI help reduce connection costs, remove complexity, and solve management, performance, and availability problems.

"iSCSI affords customers the opportunity to expand and enhance their networked storage capabilities with maximum simplicity, minimum risk, and low cost," said Lauren Flaherty, vice president of marketing, IBM Data Management Solutions. "Our support for NetApp's iSCSI solutions for DB2 environments demonstrates our commitment to both customer choice and lower TCO."

"We are seeing more enterprises turning to storage consolidation to keep their rising data requirements and costs under control," said Phil Williams, vice president of marketing at Network Appliance. "iSCSI support in DB2 environments will enable customers to consolidate their core DB2 data with affordable SAN solutions, while meeting business requirements for performance and availability, for a higher return on investment."