Hey Douglas,
First, thanks for the great research/comments as of late. I appreciate it.
Next, you guessed it, I have a few questions. Of course, I have been reading about way too many rumors on these boards for some time, and its hard to discern the chaos. I'd like your opinions. Perhaps, all I'd like is to get a more clear picture of things. Because of your recent discussions about private and public loop --
1.) Are Ancor's FC switches the only ones that have Hard zoning? I have heard that Brocade has only soft zoning. Have you heard differently? Also, Vixel is introducing their new 8 port soon. Will this have hard or soft zoning?
2.) Will major Oems need public loop and hard zoning in a product if they want to compete with the other large companies going big into SANs? I recall awhile ago someone (perhaps a rapport or it might have been a vixel guy at a presentation i saw) saying that private loop is needed now and people won't need public loop for a long time. Has this time come? And if so, why? (forgive me if this has been gone over way too much for your taste) Also, if a large oem were to go with both a private loop and public loop solution, would the private loop one come out first in your opinion and how big will that business be compared to the public loop biz (i keep getting pictures of cap vs. dmt standards in the xDSL world and how at first things will be cap but eventually eveything will move to dmt...is this kinda of the same thinking with private loop and public loop?)
3.) Asic_1 or someone posted that Ancor is the only one who has a true fabric switch. Is this true? I believe brocade says quite clearly that their ware is a fabric switch. Why the confusion and is that really a big enough deal to get an oem or not? Doesn't seem to make a difference with people like 3com who are using brocade's software i believe and Dell who was printed in some publication a little while ago as going with brocade for a product offering.
4.) You mention Hard zoning as being more secure (protects against accidental attack), but won't it just as much be up to the software guys like veritas and legato and even microsoft when they release win3000 that define how secure the SANs of the future will be?
5.) You bold face 'routing enforcement' as though it were very critical. What does it do exactly and why is it critical now?
I will think of more questions later. ;-) I have my own theories on these, but i would appreciate further discussion. Seems many posters are saying hard zoning and public loop are absolutely necessary. No offense, but i don't buy that coin...well, yet. I like to be more critical nowadays, bc this seems to put Ancor in an envious position and I know too well thats its sometimes better to be the underdog than the blind favorite out there (ie. i remember way back to the sequent days when this unknown guy named brocade came from nowhere to take ancors biz...old management got bushwhacked!). The last thing now for me is to assume ancor will get business because they have to. Only the paranoid survive, right? ;-)
Thanks for any thoughts,
pigboy
p.s. go see 'Rushmore.' It was pretty good. Would like to hear your thoughts on that as well. |
