jack: here's a bit more on the OSN initiative. fwiw, those "five other companies" are Amdahl, Cisco, Foundry Networks, Legato[e], and Veritas.
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The ethernet option
Initiative eyes blueprint for Gigabit-based storage network architecture
By Sonia R. Lelii, eWEEK
May 15, 2000 8:42 AM ET
zdnet.com
Network Appliance Inc. has taken off the gloves in its fight to deploy pooled storage over Gigabit Ethernet connections.
At NetWorld+Interop here last week, the Sunnyvale, Calif., storage appliance manufacturer teamed with Quantum ATL Products Inc. and five other companies to define standards for devices that would make Gigabit Ethernet the technology of choice when deploying NAS (network-attached storage).
The idea behind the Open Storage Networking, or OSN, initiative is to deliver a storage network architecture that comprises servers, storage appliances, ATLs (automated tape libraries) and network switching equipment that can be deployed easily in customers' network infrastructures.
OSN members are looking to define a technology architecture and road map centered on Gigabit Ethernet and ultimately offer certified hardware and software configurations.
A key technology in this architecture is NDMP (Network Data Management Protocol), which lets large packets of data be transported without going through the server. For backing up storage over the network, the NDMP-compliant components are placed in NAS devices and in other network areas, such as the tape library.
NAS filers traditionally have connected to corporate networks via SCSI or Fibre Channel adapters. But hooking such devices into a Gigabit Ethernet network would provide a combination of high performance and lower cost that neither SCSI nor Fibre Channel can match, said OSN members.
Some IT managers agree.
"Direct-attached SCSI does not cut it. We already found out it does not work," said Jeff Kruger, an IT manager at San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc., which uses 30 NAI [sic] filers. "We already know and trust TCP/IP and NDMP on Gigabit [Ethernet]. All we have to do is pop a card into the ATL tape library. This is a significantly less drastic infrastructure change."
Installing a Fibre Channel infrastructure would be costly. At the same time, the average cost per port for both Gigabit Ethernet and Fast Ethernet is declining, according to International Data Corp., a market researcher in Framingham, Mass.
Atlanta-based startup Medizeus Inc. is planning to put its storage traffic on Gigabit Ethernet leased from a co-location service provider rather than build out a Fibre Channel network.
"It's the difference between paying $5,000 a month on custom cabling vs. using standard Cat 5 cabling that [a co-location] already has in place," said Brian Niemeyer, Medizeus' manager of software development. |
