Joe W., Just some random dots....
entradanetworks.com
Entrada Networks' solutions include systems and components for enabling high-speed storage networking between SANs and over wide area networks. With core technologies in optical switching, Fibre Channel, SAN, WAN, Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet, Entrada is poised to deliver exciting next-generation networking solutions for storage OEMs, providers, and carriers.
Stay posted for exciting new product announcements......
was formed from the combination of Osicom Technologies' Maryland-based Entrada unit and Sync Research of Irvine. Sync was a manufacturer of wide-area network equipment that never showed a profit since its stock began trading in 1995 at $20 a share.
I think the BIG dogs will capture this market if there is one...
One of the IP Storage hired guns appears to be a tech writer named John Toigo. Here are some links to his recent missives. Now I wonder who pays his salary??
Sensible SANs Are On The Horizon
by Jon William Toigo
[ July 07, 2000 ]
Don't get pushed around by Fibre Channel vendors. Sensible SANs are coming soon.
On June 13, I was delighted to hear Cisco Systems (stock: CSCO) and Brocade Communications Systems (stock: BRCD) announce that they would jointly develop ways to interconnect Brocade's Fibre Channel "SAN islands" across Cisco-switched enterprise, metropolitan and wide-area networks. It was nice to see the two companies playing well together to deliver solutions to their common customers -- which, I suppose, was the image they wanted to convey.
At the same time, I was struck by the dancing the vendors were doing around a key fact: that Cisco had already declared Fibre Channel (FC) -- the prevailing interconnect used with current-generation storage networks -- a dead technology.
I do not begrudge Cisco its profits. But it irks me as a technologist that the Cisco-Brocade alliance may actually encourage companies to adopt current-generation FC-based storage networks.
Cisco has said that even with its upcoming, double-capacity improvement, 2X Fibre Channel will deliver yesterday's bandwidth tomorrow -- especially compared with 10X Gigabit Ethernet, which will debut later this year.....
netconvergence.com
is.pennwellnet.com
SANs and sensibility: Back to IP
By Jon William Toigo
For the past two years, the storage area network (SAN) has been the darling architecture of the storage industry and the trade press. You would have had to have been marooned on a desert island not to have heard about the promise of SANs-how they will simplify data storage allocation, provide unlimited storage scalability without downtime, and ease the storage management burden while reducing management costs. In short, SANs are described as a panacea for just about everything that is ailing corporate IT.
It appears that Gilder has at least obtained a copy of his most recent text....
Holy Grail of Data Storage Management, The
by Jon William Toigo, Margaret Romao Toigo (Illustrator)
Textbook Binding - 322 pages 1 edition (August 16, 1999)
Prentice Hall; ISBN: 0130130559 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.23 x 9.61 x 7.31
Amazon
From the back cover of the book....
From the Back Cover
"This is a great book at the right time . . . I found the book to be exactly what I was looking for and very well written." --Dr. David Spuler, Director of Advanced Research, BMC Software and Author, Enterprise Application Management with PATROL (1999)
What Every Enterprise Needs to Know to Solve Its Data Deluge!
Depending on the analyst one follows, corporate IT departments will spend between 75 and 90 cents of every dollar over the next five years on data storage products. The reason is simple: Companies are generating data at a phenomenal rate and increasing their requirements for data storage by 100 percent or more per year.
In The Holy Grail of Data Storage Management, Jon William Toigo documents current trends in storage technology and shows IT executives exactly how to plan a comprehensive strategy for maximizing the availability, performance, and cost-effectiveness of enterprise storage. Discover how to: Map your storage strategy to long-term business goals and application data movement requirements Apply architectural, scalability, and investment protection criteria to every storage purchase Customize storage to key enterprise applications, including data warehousing, ERP, OLTP, and e-commerce Master the new skills needed to manage next-generation storage
This vendor-neutral guide offers new insight into every next-generation storage technology: network attached storage (NAS), RAID array configurations, storage appliances, near on-line storage, Storage Area Networks (SANs), optical systems, and much more. If you're responsible for enterprise storage, planning, architecture, and/or distributed systems, you'll find this book absolutely indispensable. < See the Introduction for more details.
The data storage infrastructure is fast becoming the center of the IT universe. For the past decade, companies have been fielding storage at an unprecedented rate -- with little attention given to the requirements for sharing or managing storage over time. New technologies such as storage area networks (SANs) are being introduced to recentralize storage and to enhance its manageability.
SANs and other new storage architectures require hybrid skills to deploy and use effectively. IT professionals must become conversant in both systems and networks to manage data in a SAN. One objective of this book is to deliver the necessary background to aid readers in developing the skills and knowledge required to capitalize on evolving storage technology.
It is my hope that this book, the first of its kind, will stimulate others to also develop useful books in this field, thereby promoting knowledge.
To keep the content of the book current with fast-changing technology, I have also created a web-site at www.stormgt.org that will serve as a "living appendix" to the book and a general clearinghouse on information pertaining to storage and its management.
Thanks again for considering this book
About the Author
JON WILLIAM TOIGO is author of six books, including the classic Disaster Recovery Planning, as well as more than 500 articles for the business trade press. He is a consultant who provides research, planning, and writing services to a broad range of commercial clients, including AT&T, Cabletron, Cisco, Citrix, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Storage Technologies Corporation, and EMC.
I think that for these articles he has written that he has clearly become a hired gun.
OPEN Q...One recurring theme that he really tries to drive home is ;Out of band management........
This argument flies in the face of one important fact: Fibre Channel does not provide a means for in-band storage management. A separate network, typ i cally Ethernet-based, must be established among the storage network components to provide management. Current attempts to bring Fibre Channel SAN management in-band involve the use of an IP stack operating over the Fibre Channel interconnect. Doing so obviates the bandwidth and latency advantages Fibre Channel is said to hold over Gigabit Ethernet.
Douglas, Gus, KJ, Technocrat, any others in the biz please make some comments on this topic for the rest of us. Thanks in advance.
netconvergence.com |
