Microsoft Corporation Acquires WinTarget Technology from String Bean Software
Microsoft Corporation today announced that it has acquired the WinTarget technology from String Bean Software, a privately-held company based in Montgomery Village, Md. WinTarget is an Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) storage area networking solution built for the Microsoft Windows computing environment. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
WinTarget is a software-based iSCSI storage area networking (SAN) solution designed and optimized for the Windows platform. It is a cost-effective scalable solution designed to enable customers to quickly install and configure a full-featured storage solution.
The acquisition is a natural expansion of Microsoft's Windows Storage Server product line and represents the company's commitment to work with a broad partner ecosystem to bring highly functional storage solutions built on industry-standard hardware to the mainstream. This commitment allows customers to maximize existing storage technology investments by simply integrating iSCSI to meet scalability demands in organizations of all sizes.
Going forward, Microsoft will not sell WinTarget as a stand-alone solution, but will release the WinTarget technology with Windows Storage Server 2003 R2. Additional details on product availability will be provided in the coming months. String Bean Software is not transferring any of its customer or channel agreements to Microsoft. However, Microsoft will provide certain levels of assistance to help meet support obligations String Bean Software has to customers who are within their initial support period.
iSCSI is a protocol that transports SCSI over IP networks, allowing for transparent support of existing applications. Many applications--including databases, e-mail, file storage gateway, and backup to disk--use the iSCSI protocol to communicate with storage components. iSCSI requires a driver on the server or host side, referred to as an initiator, and a communication driver on the storage system, referred to as a target. Microsoft Windows and other operating systems come with native iSCSI initiator drivers, and storage systems that support the iSCSI protocol provide a target driver that has been tested and qualified with the server-based iSCSI initiator.
