Data-Storage Firms Set Pact To Smooth Traffic on Networks
By JERRY GUIDERA
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
In an unusual pact among fiercely competitive data-storage companies, six major firms are expected to announce Monday the first industrywide effort to help speed the adoption of storage-area-networks.
Industry leader EMC Corp. is joining rivals International Business Machines Corp., Compaq Computer Corp., Hitachi Ltd.'s Hitachi Data Systems and network switch makers Brocade Communications Systems Inc. and McData Corp. in the effort. They have pledged to troubleshoot each other's equipment in networks and share technical information that will help standardize the way data traffic moves around storage-specific networks, according to people familiar with the agreement.
"We've agreed to collaborate with our competitors when things aren't working properly," confirmed Hitachi Data Systems Chief Operating Officer Dave Roberson.
However, several major storage companies, such as Sun Microsystems Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and networking leader Cisco Systems Inc., have yet to sign up, potentially limiting the impact of this agreement.
The agreement, to be unveiled by the three-year-old Storage Networking Industry Association, is the result of series of meetings among storage companies begun in early December after a chorus of complaints from technology chiefs at large customers.
Storage-area networks are linked groups of data-storage devices that can be accessed by many different computers in order to speed information retrieval. Such dedicated storage networks increasingly have replaced storage devices directly attached to just one big computer.
In the past, storage makers have been reluctant to make their gear work with competitors, because each hopes to be the sole supplier to a customer. However, many customers want to mix and match storage devices and avoid being locked in to a single supplier. Brian Cobb, a computer systems engineer at mortgage lender Fannie Mae, says the new pact is evidence that "we've been able to make them cooperate and do things that they wouldn't otherwise do."
Larry Krantz, head of the trade group, says the effort was "in direct response" to pressure from Mr. Cobb and other information-technology managers to establish "storage networking solutions that are jointly qualified and mutually supported by competing vendors."
Write to Jerry Guidera at jerry.guidera@wsj.com |
