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Veritas Finally Delivers on Cisco

Fifteen months after declaring its intentions to do so, Veritas Software Corp. (Nasdaq: VRTS) today announced the shipment of its virtualization software on Cisco Systems Inc.'s (Nasdaq: CSCO) MDS 9000 series of SAN switches.

The Veritas Storage Foundation for Network (VSFN) will run over the Cisco family of multilayer directors and fabric switches to take advantage of Cisco's so-called smart switching technology (see Veritas, Cisco Ship Switch App).

The announcement has been long anticipated, not only because of the benefits the technology will supposedly provide but also because of how long we've been waiting for it. Veritas first said it would develop virtualization software for Cisco's switches on Aug. 20, 2002 -- the same day Cisco "bought" its in-house startup, Andiamo Systems, and entered the SAN switching market (see Veritas Supports Cisco MDS 9000, Cisco Announces Andiamo Switches, Veritas Puckers Up for Cisco, Sprint Puts Cisco to Test, and Veritas Demos With Cisco).

Cisco executives, in an interview with Byte and Switch this spring, acknowledged that the process of getting the Veritas code to run on its platform was more difficult than they'd originally anticipated (see V-Switch Alliances Take Shape).

But in spite of taking so long, Cisco got the jump on other switching vendors in shipping with management software built into its switches, analysts say.

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