Sistina Software was an organization that focused on storage solutions designed around a Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

 platform. It was acquired by Red Hat

Red Hat

Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....

 in December, 2003. Their two primary offerings were Global File System

Global File System

In computing, the Global File System is a shared disk file system for Linux computer clusters. This is not to be confused with the Google File System, a proprietary distributed filesystem developed by Google....

 (GFS) and logical volume management

Logical volume management

In computer storage, logical volume management or LVM provides a method of allocating space on mass-storage devices that is more flexible than conventional partitioning schemes...

 (LVM).

GFS

GFS is a cluster file system on Linux that allows servers to transparently access a single file system on a storage area network

Storage area network

A storage area network is a dedicated network that provides access to consolidated, block level data storage. SANs are primarily used to make storage devices, such as disk arrays, tape libraries, and optical jukeboxes, accessible to servers so that the devices appear like locally attached devices...

 (SAN). Its highlights are performance and reliability (journaling filesystem, scalability

Scalability

In electronics scalability is the ability of a system, network, or process, to handle growing amount of work in a graceful manner or its ability to be enlarged to accommodate that growth...

 through parallelism

Parallelism

Parallelism may refer to:* Angle of parallelism, the angle at one vertex of a right hyperbolic triangle that has two hyperparallel sides* Conscious parallelism, price-fixing between competitors in an oligopoly that occurs without an actual spoken agreement between the parties* Parallel computing,...

, etc).

LVM

LVM has become a part of the Linux kernel

Linux kernel

The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....

. It is a subsystem which allows arbitrary physical storage to be recognized as a virtual disk device. The physical storage can be remote, or it can even consist of multiple physical devices, but LVM abstracts those distinctions away from the operating system user. LVM also provides services for backing up data.