IP SANs Are Sizzling

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Question: Whats the one thing just about everybody’s doing at Storage Network World that usually involves a partner?

Answer: iSCSI.

Although nobody’s sure how big a dent iSCSI is making in Fibre Channel market share, IP SANs are certainly gaining mindshare (and floorspace) at SNW.

IP SAN and other iSCSI devices have been a hot topic here this week, with startups and partnerships frequently involved. LeftHand Networks Inc., one of the early IP startups, has been particularly busy on the partnership front.

LeftHand announced it has deployed more than 750 systems in the last 18 months, and recently signed deals with MPC Computers, Silicon Mechanics, and Verari Systems Inc. to run its SAN/iQ software on their storage systems (see LeftHand Reports Progress).

“Many of these companies are able to participate in network storage now, where two years ago it was impossible,” says Tom Major, LeftHand’s marketing VP. “The building blocks are there now, like Gigabit Ethernet and intelligent architectures.”

MPC Computers runs LeftHand’s software on its new DataFrame 420 system, which replaces its FC-based DataFrame 310fc system. The new system supports 16 250-gigabyte SATA drives per 3U enclosure, with a 4-terabyte configuration priced at $20,000.

Silicon Mechanics announced the SANform M100 based on LeftHand software at the show, and Verari launched its PUREcluster ipSAN October 12 (see Verari Ships IP SAN). Both systems use LeftHand software.

Other iSCSI announcements at SNW:

Except for NetApp, one of the first entrenched Fibre Channel vendors to embrace iSSCI, the leading SAN vendors are missing from the above list. But they’re interested. IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) recently announced an entry-level iSCSI system and EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC)is expected to do the same by the end of the year (see IBM Slips iSCSI Into SAN).

How will that affect the startups trying to gain a foothold?

Major says that while larger players like IBM and EMC make their plans, the iSCSI pioneers already have several generations of products. “The big guys make a lot of noise, but as those guys jump into the market, they’ll find a lot of guys already running on distributed architectures,” he says.

— Dave Raffo, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch