Cisco Poised To Demo New Storage Networking Technology
At next week's Storage Networking World tradeshow in Phoenix, Cisco
and three ISV partners plan to demonstrate a new storage networking
feature that Cisco is incorporating in its MDS 9000 Series SAN switches.
The feature, which Cisco calls the MDS 9000 Data Tap Service, provides
a protocol-based interface between the networking giant's MDS 9000
Series SAN switches and third-party storage appliances. As a result,
Cisco says, these appliances can access servers and storage devices
on a SAN without having to be directly in the path of the data.
Joining Cisco in the demo are Alacritus, a manufacturer of disk-based
data protection solutions; Kashya, a purveyor of cost-effective
business continuity solutions; and Topio, a specialist in enterprise
data recoverability solutions.
In a statement, John Webster, senior analyst and founder of the
Data Mobility Group, explained that "Cisco is adding a 'side
door' to the switching fabric through which data can pass to storage
appliances." One advantage of this approach, Webster continued,
is that "Users can then adapt these appliances to a variety
of applications in a non-disruptive way that also preserves the
attributes of the switching fabric."
Cisco claims that the benefits of deploying the Cisco MDS 9000
in combination with storage appliances will be useful in high-traffic
SANs with a large number of II/O transactions between servers and
their storage targets.
The networking giant plans to offer the MDS 9000 Data Tap Service
on one of the line cards for the Cisco MDS 9000. Cisco says that
it will be available for use on the Cisco MDS 9216, MDS 9506, and
the MDS 9509 models.
In a statement, Soni Jiandani, vice president of marketing in Cisco's
Internet Switching Business Unit, said that the new MDS 9000 Data
Tap Service is consistent with Cisco's multi-layer vision: "It
supports our multi-layer product vision for the Cisco MDS 9000 by
offering our customers the utmost flexibility in storage software
options that run seamlessly over a highly scalable, reliable, and
intelligent SAN switch platform." -Stephen Swoyer
|
