Douglas, Can you help translate for the rest of us? Anything new? Any implications for FC or SANs? CMNT make any money from this?
CNT Delivers On the Future of Storage Networking With Support for the Internet Protocol
New 'I-Stor' Capabilities Enable Companies to Leverage the 'Bandwidth on Demand' of IP-based Networks for Storage Applications
MINNEAPOLIS, Feb. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Computer Network Technology (CNT(R)), (Nasdaq: CMNT) a leader in storage networking, today delivered the first component in its strategy to provide storage networking applications over Internet Protocol (IP)-based networks, such as intranets and Virtual Private Networks. Traditionally, IP-based networks have been considered unreliable and expensive for storage applications. Reductions in bandwidth costs and new transport capabilities from CNT eliminate these concerns, making these widely available, high capacity networks a viable option for continuous business applications such as remote web serving, distributed data warehousing, software distribution, and data center migration.
For its initial IP-based offering, CNT augmented and refined the storage transport capabilities in its UltraNet(R) Storage Director, a high-speed switching platform, to support IP. Available today, these software enhancements packaged under the name "I-Stor," will enable EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF) data mirroring software to operate over IP networks. To make SRDF over IP a reality, CNT developed new software to create a communication mechanism that converts SRDF data frames to standard IP packets to ensure data delivery and performance over an IP network. This enhancement adds significant transport layer functionality, optimized for storage applications like SRDF data mirroring. Data compression, alternate routing, load balancing, enhanced flow control and routing are among the features provided by this transport layer.
"I think data replication is one of the biggest trends of 2000," said Steve Duplessie, analyst with the Enterprise Storage Group, a storage research/analyst firm in Massachusetts. "All of these new dot-com ventures now understand the importance of the 'customer experience' which is radically affected by data availability. In an ideal world, data is as close to the customer as possible. Now there is an affordable option through data replication over IP."
Companies are looking to deploy their storage applications over IP networks for two reasons: to leverage their existing infrastructure and connections, and to improve bandwidth utilization. With an IP network, companies can use as much or as little bandwidth as they need, and pay only for what they use. IP networks offer "bandwidth on demand," enabling companies to have the bandwidth they need to ensure deployment of critical information, regardless of peak access demands. Industry estimates indicated that running storage applications over an IP network rather than over dedicated T1, T3 or ATM networks can reduce costs by up to 50 percent. Other advantages include a quicker time-to-market for data replication applications, and an expanded set of data movement techniques.
"As today's business leaders deploy mission-critical information infrastructure to bring their companies competitive advantage in Internet time, they want to leverage what's already in use and works -- such as the ever-present IP network," said Mark Ward, EMC vice president of global marketing. "EMC worked closely with CNT to marry SRDF, the market-leading information protection solution, with CNT's innovative, proven approach to remote storage networking. The result, SRDF over IP, offers customers the ability to productively employ and cost-effectively protect their increasing volumes of mission-critical data."
This is CNT's first of several components to support the IP network. In addition, the company has broadened its professional services offerings to include IP-based training and support. The CNT/EMC application has already been tested at two customer sites:
-- A telecommunications company is replicating data over its virtual private network in order to create secure, remote copies of that stored information; and
-- An Internet portal is running the CNT/EMC solution over a virtual private network to create mirrored Web sites of its search engine, providing quicker access and faster performance for Web users.
"Companies want choice, they want to select the best storage, server and networking solutions for their business -- especially their mission-critical operations that demand continuous up-time," said Thomas G. Hudson, chairman, president and chief executive officer of CNT. "By acting as the doorway between the world of storage and the IP world, CNT has added another element of choice. CNT remains a leader in enabling companies to network their storage by being the only vendor to support all the products that create a SAN infrastructure, regardless of technology, storage components, or distance.
CNT Offers Broadest Range of Storage Networking Infrastructure Options
By adding IP support, CNT now offers customers the industry's broadest range of storage networking infrastructure options for enabling continuous business operations. In 1998, CNT was first to enable SAN applications to operate over wide area networks. In November 1999, CNT was the first vendor to deliver Fibre Channel over wide area networking support, and the company continues to be the only vendor to offer this capability. Today, CNT delivers another first with support for SRDF over IP for data replication applications. This industry leadership enables CNT to provide its customers with superior technologies and service.
"As one of the pioneers in remote storage networking, CNT brings a level of expertise to this market that can provide a tremendous benefit to customers," said David Hill, research director, storage management at Aberdeen Group. "Storage Area Networks, or SANs, need to extend further distances and connect all the segments of a business. The wide-area networking capabilities provided by CNT enable that growth into the 'SAN over WAN' environment. Organizations that want to use their current storage and networking components to grow into an any-distance SAN will benefit from CNT's hands-on expertise and neutrality in working with all the products involved in a storage network."
About Computer Network Technology (CNT)
Computer Network Technology, based in Minneapolis, Minn., is a global company providing hardware, software and services for the implementation of Storage Area Networking and Enterprise Application Integration solutions. Organizations worldwide choose CNT to build and run their business-critical networks and gain greater connectivity and access to information, without sacrificing performance, security, or integrity. The Company's products are sold worldwide through a direct sales force and a network of authorized distributors. For more information, visit CNT's web site at cnt.com or call 800-638-8324 (U.S.) or 612-797 |
