'99 takes shape.......
techweb.com
2K, Fibre Channel, SANs Top Issues In '99
Joseph F. Kovar
Irvine, Calif. -- Year 2000 issues, storage area networks (SANs) and
increased vendor consolidation are among the good news-and bad
news-data-storage VARs can expect for 1999.
Most analysts expect 1999 to be a year of growth. "By the end of [next] year,
concerns with Y2K may slow growth down," said Dave Hill, senior analyst for
storage and storage management at Aberdeen Group, Boston. "But maybe
there'll be even more growth because of Y2K testing."
Anders Lofgren, senior industry analyst with Giga Information Group,
Cambridge, Mass., expects good and bad news from year 2000.
"What may happen is that in the first half of the year, companies will want to
push their Y2K projects," Lofgren said. "But in the second half, they will not
be sure if they can get the resources. They may . . . not bring in any new
equipment, as they already know what's in their environment is
Y2K-compliant."
SANs, along with Fibre Channel, are top storage concerns, said analysts. This
is especially true, said Farid Neema, president of Peripheral Concepts Inc.,
Santa Barbara, Calif., as Fibre Channel suppliers such as McData Corp.,
Gadzoox Networks Inc., Vixel Corp. and Brocade Communications Systems
Inc. continue to sign OEM contracts with major server vendors.
Neema also said the entry of LAN vendor 3Com Corp., which recently
announced a SAN initiative and made an equity investment in Gadzoox, will
expand the market. "Expect more of these deals," he said.
SANs will continue to be hyped more than delivered in 1999, especially
where interconnectivity is concerned. "There will still be more homogeneous
solutions-system vendors are more inclined to certify solutions for their
systems," said Michael Casey, research director for Gartner Group Inc.,
Stamford, Conn.
Casey said to look for full Fibre Channel connectivity from host to drive in
1999, as well as more Fibre Channel hubs and switches.
Hard-disk-drive technology will continue to be driven by increasing density,
said Jim Porter, president of Disk/Trend Inc., Mountain View, Calif.
In the desktop area, IBM's new 25-Gbyte drive follows the trend of
increasing density by 60 percent a year, Porter said, meaning VARs can
expect 40-Gbyte drives this time next year.
Density growth for enterprise drives finally will catch up to that of desktop
drives, with enterprise drive capacity reaching 72 Gbytes by late next year,
Porter said. Hybrid mechanical-optical drives from TeraStor Corp., San Jose,
Calif., expected mid-1999, may influence hard-disk drives, as the high density
makes it easy to increase capacity with fewer platters, he said.
The data-storage industry is consolidating. In 1998, digital linear tape (DLT)
vendor Quantum purchased tape-library maker ATL Products Inc.; library
maker Advanced Digital Information Corp. (ADIC) purchased the Emass
tape-storage division of Raytheon Co.; and Veritas Software Corp.
purchased Seagate Software Inc.
So far, the consolidation has been good for the industry because it gives
resellers a single vendor for upgrades or tech support, said Patricia Adams,
research analyst for Gartner Group.
Data-storage VARs said they see a wide variety of opportunities and
problems in the coming year.
Wayne Uhrig, manager of enterprise engineering at CompuCom Systems Inc.,
Dallas, said customers are in the clustering mode. "Fibre Channel is an
opportunity for consolidation big time," he said.
However, Uhrig said, year 2000 will mean lost opportunities in 1999. "People
are being real, real cautious. We see lots of dollars sunk into software, but not
hardware. . . . When Oracle [Corp.], Informix [Inc.], Sybase [Inc.] and so on
get their parallel environment products [year 2000]-compliant, then we'll see a
pickup in hardware."
Uhrig said he sees plenty of opportunities with server-attached storage.
"Compaq's servers are one of our best sellers," he said. "We're looking
forward to pushing their Fibre Channel hardware next year."
Bill Gardner, president of UltraServ Inc., San Jose, agrees server-attached
storage is still a major trend. "We're seeing customers ask for data storage
from the server manufacturers," he said.
Opportunities for data storage are exploding, said John Nies, account
manager for Lewan & Associates Inc., Denver. "Data storage is becoming a
larger part of the decision-making process than in the past."
Data storage for Windows NT is growing extremely fast, as more critical
applications are ported to the operating system, Nies said. "Now we're seeing
10, 20, even 50 NT servers. Instead of a couple of Gbytes, each may have
multiple storage subsystems of a couple hundred Gbytes."
Nies said there is increasing emphasis on large-capacity backup systems from
EMC Corp., IBM and Hitachi Data Systems Corp. that consolidate multiple
servers to back up to a single storage device. |
