Easing storage deployment
 
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Recently there have been several storage-related announcements that have given me hope that vendors are beginning to listen to their customers regarding interoperability and management of network storage infrastructures.
The first was an announcement from the Storage Networking Industry Association that six of its vendor members have agreed to qualify, provide and support cross-vendor, interoperable storage networking products [see: Vendors form alliance to link storage-area networks, www.nwfusion.com/archive/2001/121701_06-11-2001.html]. Those vendors are Brocade, McData, Hitachi, EMC, IBM and Compaq, which are also founding members of Supported Solutions Forum, a new SNIA forum.
In most cases it is necessary to have multiple vendors supply the different components of storage-area networks (SAN), but this increases the complexity of implementation and troubleshooting. The Storage Networking Industry Association announcement should help to ease the stresses customers encounter when deploying networked storage.
Learning from the difficulties encountered in the fibre channel SAN environment, companies are promoting industry standards for IP storage management tools. An example of this is the very recent announcement from IBM, Intel, and Nishan supporting the IP storage protocol, Internet Storage Name Service [http://www.nishansystems.com/news/nishan_pr.html]. Contributors to the Internet Storage Name Service standard-track specification include Cisco, IBM, Nishan, Nortel, Pirus and Vixel. Nishan has released its name service code to open source.
The Internet Storage Name Service provides a common discovery and management capability for IP storage components. Standardization of management tools early in the market development will help customers implement and manage their environment.
As the early days of IP networking has shown us, collaboration among industry leaders is essential in bringing real customer solutions to the market and storage networking is no different. Customers should continue to search for vendors who are willing to enter into multivendor relationships that support their business infrastructure requirements.
Editor's Note: In the previous storage newsletter, which was about mapping storage, the name of a supplier FalconStor, was misspelled. The correct URL for its Web site is http://www.falconstor.com.
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Anne Skamarock is senior analyst with Enterprise Management Associates in Boulder, Colo., an analyst and market research firm focusing exclusively on enterprise management. She can be reached via e-mail.
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