Cisco to Slot In NetApp?
byteandswitch.com
Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO - message board) and Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP - message board) are in the early stages of developing a NAS blade for Cisco's MDS 9500 series of Fibre Channel switches, sources tell Byte and Switch.
Such a deal would potentially further upset the status quo in the storage industry, as Cisco and its partners move to usurp functionality that has historically resided on storage arrays provided by EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC - message board), Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ - message board), IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM - message board), and others.
An industry source familiar with Cisco's plans says the two companies are working on a file services card for the MDS 9500 chassis-based switches that would provide access via Network File System (NFS) and Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocols to block-based back-end storage. Cisco wouldn't actually sell or resell disk subsystems, a business in which it has repeatedly disavowed interest. Rather, the MDS 9500 switches would act as a front-end file system to any third-party storage, which is not an entirely new concept in the industry (see SAN/NAS Convergence, Agile Plods Ahead, and Auspex Pulls SANs Into NAS).
The NetApp partnership would be similar to the one Cisco has established with Veritas Software Corp. (Nasdaq: VRTS - message board), which is porting its entire software suite to the Cisco switch, developed by in-house R&D arm Andiamo Systems Inc. (see Storage OEMs Warm Up to Cisco, Cisco Buys Andiamo, Cisco Ducks the Veritas Question, and Veritas Puckers Up for Cisco).
"It would be a Network Appliance NAS head sitting right in the MDS," the source says. "Cisco's goal is to commoditize storage and move both the network and the intelligence under its realm."
Our source notes that a product from the Cisco/NetApp efforts would not arrive until late 2003 at the earliest.
Another industry observer notes that a Cisco/NetApp pairing "would be consistent with Cisco's statement that they would not enter the NAS market 'directly.' That doesn't rule out a partnership blade."
Steve Duplessie, senior analyst at The Enterprise Storage Group Inc. -- while he was unable to confirm that a NetApp/Cisco partnership actually exists -- says such a combination makes perfect sense.
"File services are a perfect application for the intelligent network," he says. "NFS/CIFS on a switch card -- a la Pirus -- is not a new idea, but putting those two market leaders together would be darned powerful."
Cisco and NetApp representatives declined to comment.
Meanwhile, NetApp has also been rumored to be working with HDS. In that partnership, HDS would use NetApp's NAS technology as a front end to its own storage arrays (see HDS to Plug In NetApp? and HDS Gets NAS Religion).
The migration of SAN intelligence into the network fabric is evident in two recent industry acquisitions: Brocade Communications Systems Inc.'s (Nasdaq: BRCD - message board) deal for intelligent SAN management switch startup Rhapsody Networks, and Sun Microsystems Inc.'s (Nasdaq: SUNW - message board) purchase of Pirus Networks to provide storage virtualization services (see Brocade Scoops Up Rhapsody, Sun Beams on Pirus, and Brocade's Virtual Bet).
But Brocade is taking pains to reassure OEMs that it will not pull the rug out from under them with the Rhapsody's virtualization switch -- indeed, at this point, Brocade is in no position to displease its OEM partners (see Market Spanks Brocade Hard).
Cisco, we're told, has other plans. According to our source, Cisco's MDS 9500 is explicitly intended to be a Trojan horse that cuts the EMCs and IBMs out of the equation and commoditizes disk storage systems.
At recent internal meeting to outline the company's Fibre Channel switch plans, an employee asked Luca Cafiero, who heads Cisco's Switching, Voice, and Storage Group, why Cisco wanted to compete in the storage market.
"We don't want to compete in storage," Cafiero replied, according to our source. "We're going to dominate storage."
Cisco, however, strongly disputes the notion that it is seeking to somehow do an end-run around the major storage suppliers. "We have no intention of getting into the disk business," says Cisco spokesman John Noh. "Our intention is to work closely with the disk array vendors."
Initially, according to industry observers, Cisco understands that it needs OEMs to bring the Andiamo switches to market. That's why Cisco has been underplaying its Veritas partnership -- even though the full suite of Veritas software, including Volume Manager and SANPoint Control, is currently fully functional on a card in the MDS 9500, our source says. But after it has established a reasonable beachhead in the Fibre Channel market, Cisco will start stuffing more SAN management features into the switch, even at the risk of alienating the major storage suppliers.
"If the OEMs are foolish enough to certify [the MDS 9500], it will be a nice honeymoon for six months," the source says. "Then [Cisco] will come out with the Veritas stuff and a NetApp card, and Cisco will just say, 'If an OEM agreement falls by the wayside, it falls by the wayside.' "
— Todd Spangler, US Editor, Byte and Switch |
