SILVER: FalconStor IPStor

IPStor nearly captured the gold, but our panel of judges frowned on the fact that the software only runs on the Unix and Linux operating platforms.

FalconStor's IPStor software centers around storage virtualization, and according to our panel, its modular architecture better serves storage environments that need to scale.

FalconStor's IPStor facilitates consolidation of heterogeneous storage environments along with provisioning of both SAN and NAS resources for file sharing from the same storage pool all while laboring from the middle of the data path. The software supports any SCSI or FC-attached disk and tape storage devices.

By offloading tasks such as backup, restore, volume management, mirroring, snapshot and replication from the application servers and the storage devices and putting them right into the SAN, IPStor chops administrative overhead. Everything is managed from a single point including diagnostics and reporting. Another feather in IPStor's management cap is its protocol support. The software connects anything that moves data including FC, IP, iSCSI, SCSI, CIFS, NFS and more.

Storage management software runner-up