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,
"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.
"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.