Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) has quietly become the buyer of Sun
Microsystems Inc.'s ailing 6920
virtualisation product, a technology it
picked up with the acquisition of Pirus Technologies for $160
million in 2002, multiple industry sources said.
Though sources said the deal is effectively done, the financial
terms were not available. Analysts said the move could mark a smart
divestment for Sun and a tightening of the business relationship
between the two companies.
"This wouldn't be about HDS acquiring a product that they're
going to go out and promote heavily," said Greg Schulz, founder and
analyst with the StorageIO Group, adding that he was not privy to
the deal. "This would be about the opportunity for HDS to sell more
products where the 6920 was being offered and to continue to offer
support to existing users of the product."
What existing users there are for the 6920 remains in doubt -- the
product never achieved much success in the midrange virtualisation
market. "It's been very hard to locate 6920 customers," said a
source close to the deal. "I think there might have been one I
heard of, who was using it as cheap disk, without using the
virtualisation piece."
Some experts have questioned why HDS would want to purchase a
less successful midrange virtualisation product when it already has
the high-end TagmaStore virtualisation offerings.
"If in fact they have bought it, then it would strike me as a
preemptive defensive move to maintain control of the intelligent
storage controller market," said Brad O'Neill, senior analyst with
the Taneja Group.
"One thing I can say about the 6920 is that it has a powerful
user interface," said John Webster, principal IT advisor for
Illuminata Inc. "That may be something HDS is looking for." Webster
said the strength of the interface is the ability to make multiple
mirror copies of data, update those mirrors, and make and track
snapshots for different types of arrays through one screen.
More behind-the-scenes information on HDS
HDS's upcoming announcement on the new high-end TagmaStore,
code-named Broadway, hasn't been fully detailed yet, according to
sources who asked to remain unidentified. Previous reports have
focused on hardware features, but Broadway will also include new
software features, sources said.
Most prominent among the new features of Broadway is new
"dynamic provisioning" software, which allows for the installation
and format of new disks without downtime.
Thin provisioning will also be offered with
the array. Both of these are features that new midrange arrays,
such as 3PARdata Inc.'s Inserv and EqualLogic Inc.'s PS Series,
have been winning on against the legacy vendors, but lately, the
big guys have been catching up -- EMC Corp. also announced
features meant to compete with upstart startups in its last
Clariion refresh in October (See,
EMC plays catch-up with Clariion, Oct.
23) .
Existing software features will also be updated in Broadway,
according to the information given to SearchStorage.com. HDS'
Universal Replication (HUR) and ShadowImage will both be able to
support more volumes and replication pairs to keep up with the
increase in the array's capacity, and HUR can support consistency
groups across up to four Broadway systems in either a two or a
three data center configuration.
Finally, the ability to externally attach storage via
FICON ports has been added, making it easier for z/OS
mainframe customers (among the chief consumers of high-end
storage like TagmaStore and Symmetrix) to create tiered storage
infrastructures.
Neither HDS nor Sun would confirm or deny reports about the
6920; HDS also declined comment about the upcoming Broadway
announcement.