For customers looking for storage that's easier to implement, administer, and manage, Gadzoox Networks Inc. is offering the Axxess SAN Appliance, which is based on its Capellix Fibre Channel switch.

Gadzoox says Axxess will let customers connect any Unix, Windows NT/2000, or Linux server to any Fibre Channel storage or SCSI-based storage. Data can also move between different storage systems through Axxess. Most importantly, customers can manage lots of data across many disks as easily as a single volume of data because Gadzoox uses data pooling or virtualization software from DataCore Software Inc. That software fools all the servers on the network into thinking they're dealing with a single disk, even when information is coming from multiple disks.

The Axxess 200e is supposed to let networked storage beginners start small and easily upgrade the appliance when business and data volumes grow. It's available now and is priced at $45,000. The Axxess 300e performs faster, scales higher, and has some failover and mirroring capabilities. It is priced at $75,000.

Dataquest analyst Carolyn DiCenzo believes the data pooling from DataCore makes the Axxess appliance most useful for IT administrators. "The appliance makes sense for people who have issues with managing networked storage and want an alternative to integrating the hardware and software themselves."