Paul Mason reports on how Cisco plans to tackle enterprise
storage
Network giant Cisco last week announced a technology alliance
with storage area network (San) specialist Brocade. The move gives
Cisco expertise in the proprietary fibre channel network
technology. At the same time, according to Cisco, it signals not
just the eventual eclipse of fibre channel, but of the San
itself.
The two companies will develop a fibre channel interface for
Cisco's Catalyst 6000 switches. The partners promise to work on
technology that enables their rival switch technologies to link
together, and allows fibre channel traffic to be carried using the
Internet Protocol (IP).
Brocade specialises in the fast-access Sans that fibre channel
was invented to enable. But, with Cisco the dominant player in
corporate networks, the agreement means that fibre channel itself
could be replaced with IP-enabled networks. The bet is that Cisco's
ability to deliver Ethernet performance up to 10gbps will eclipse
fibre channel's performance edge.
Once that is achieved, the whole reason for a separate storage
network will disappear, Cisco believes.
Peter Alexander, Cisco's enterprise marketing manager, says the
agreement is a "key indicator that we believe the future of San is
IP-based".
Currently, the storage debate focuses on which of two
alternatives allows fastest data retrieval to the main data
processing network - a parallel network (the San) or a series of
devices attached at local level (known as network attached
storage). Fibre channel was seen as the killer application for the
San strategy because of its high speed over a wide geographic
area.
Unlike the open standard IP, fibre channel handles errors at the
hardware level - removing the error routines that slow down IP
traffic. But Alexander dropped a bombshell into the storage by
declaring that fast Ethernet will kill off the San concept
altogether.
"The principle of the San was to bypass low speed and create
high speed. If the rest of the network can handle that, you might
as well channel your other traffic through it as create a separate
network.
"San infers almost a separate network with a separate area. We
believe the future is about more integration. Storage will run
together with applications over the same network."
"The history of the San is about the need for a network that
provided guaranteed performance for the storage - that relied on
the speed of the infrastructure, the switches and services. We
believe the IP network will provide the speed," says Alexander.
The alliance follows a familiar pattern in which Cisco embraces
a leading proprietary technology to influence its roadmap, ensures
interoperability with IP-based technology and, ultimately, replaces
it with IP.