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Interoperable storage networking solutions released

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE: The Storage Networking Industry Association’s Supported

Solutions Forum (SNIA SSF), has announced that SSF members Legato Systems,

Quantum Corp., StorageTek and Veritas Software have joined them to provide a new

solution set. It expands on the flexibility and functionality of the first

cross-vendor, interoperable storage networking solutions registered and

qualified with SNIA in June 2001. The six members of the association are

Brocade, Compaq Computer Corp., EMC, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM Corp. and McDATA

Corp,

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"This cooperation among competing vendors is a model approach to

providing customers with interoperable, heterogeneous storage area network (SAN)

solutions," said, SNIA’s Supported Solutions Forum (SSF), chairman, Marc

Oswald. "These latest additions to the SSF Solutions Registry demonstrate

the SSF’s commitment to provide customers with SAN solutions that offer a

broad choice of products and are cooperatively supported by the participating

vendors."

The original solution set included joint qualification of two open storage

area network solutions that enabled the coexistence of data zones containing

Compaq, EMC, Hitachi Data Systems and IBM storage system products on a single,

shared Fibre Channel fabric. At that time, participating vendors signed

bilateral cooperative support agreements intended to simplify joint customer

support in multi-vendor environments.

The new solution set adds additional backup capabilities and multi-vendor

disk storage from Compaq, EMC, Hitachi Data Systems and IBM, multi-vendor tape

storage from IBM, Quantum and StorageTek and multi-vendor backup/recovery

software from Legato Systems, IBM Tivoli Storage and VERITAS Software, all

running on either a Brocade fabric or a McDATA fabric. The Brocade fabric

consists of 12 Silkworm 2800 16-port switches at its edge with four SilkWorm

3800 16-port switches at its core. The core switches utilize the higher speed 2

Gb/sec link technology, while the edge switches use 1 Gb/sec link technology.

The McDATA fabric consists of four 64-port Intrepidâ„¢ 6000 Series Directors

plus a single Sphereon 1000 Series Edge Switch for attaching FC-AL tape drives.

The McDATA Director uses 1 Gb/sec technology that is supported and upgradeable

to 2 Gb/sec to 10 Gb/sec, while the Edge Switch uses 1Gb/sec link technology.

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"This is a strategic step forward in the evolution of cooperatively

supported, open SAN interoperability sponsored by SNIA and the SSF," said

SNIA Board Member Clod Barrera. "These industry leaders are working

together to develop solutions that truly benefit end users and solve real world

business problems."

Open SAN solutions are standards-based storage networks that provide tested

interoperability of products supplied by multiple vendors. Potential benefits

include increased flexibility for networked storage infrastructures, reduced

costs from consolidating SAN islands, greater investment protection and

maximized value of storage networking technology. Storage networking customers

are able to deploy heterogeneous SANs from multiple suppliers with

interoperability and improved support.

In January 2002, the SSF announced collaboration with the Technical Support

Alliance Network (TSANet) to utilize its multi-vendor support process to

administer a 24x7 cooperative support relationship capability for the SNIA SSF.

This relationship provides the means for SNIA members to work together to

support their mutual customers, eliminating potential finger pointing amongst

vendors when a customer needs support. The customers’ ability to engage

cooperative support is dependent upon the customer having valid support,

warranty or service agreements with each vendor in any interoperable solution

and in no way provides an additional level of entitlement to the customer.

Through this tightly coupled cooperative support relationship, a customer can

rest assured that their multi-vendor support issues are addressed appropriately.

The overall framework of these interoperability initiatives enables SNIA

members to offer customer-friendly support while at the same time allowing them

to preserve the healthy competition that marks the storage network marketplace.

The SSF will continue the development of interoperable storage initiatives by

expanding the size of configurations, involving additional vendors, adding

components, increasing the level of component interoperability, adding

multi-vendor switch interoperability and integrating new storage networking

applications.

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