IDC says 56% of 4.5 billlion market, or 2.5 in switching for 2003. You'd hink that SSB has seen these estimates and says that SAN numbers have to be moved higher toward the ceiling? IDC had that meeting last wk. SI QAncr thread will give an appreciation award for excerptsfrom that conterence.
They charge a LOT for their info, but this one is free....
idc.com
April 18, 2000
SAN Is More Than NAS Spelled Backwards
Storage and networking technology are intersecting in new ways, causing vendors to scramble to ensure that their components are interoperable and that customers will get solutions that are as manageable as they are powerful and reliable.
Declining costs of magnetic media, the rise of heterogeneous networks, and the deluge of Web-based solutions challenge IT managers to provide reliable distributed file services throughout their organizations. Until very recently, the preferred approach involved LAN-based file servers or network attached storage (NAS). For both business and technical reasons, however, users are increasingly turning to storage area network (SAN) solutions for enterprise file management needs. Business reasons include:
Increased, less expensive storage capacity strains data management capabilities.
Users and customers are demanding 24 x 7 availability of in-house data resources.
Alliances and consolidations in storage and networking enable more cost-effective solutions.
Technical reasons for adopting SANs include:
File management, mirroring, backup, and archiving needs loom larger as data volumes grow.
LANs may become congested when large files are transferred through them.
Servers can access files faster on back-end buses than on front-end LANs.
Maintaining SANity
IDC defines a SAN as a configuration of two or more servers connected through a hub or switch to one or more storage arrays. The connections are usually via Fibre Channels (FCs), which can simultaneously support several parallel protocols, as well as IP traffic, audio, video, and other types of data.
SANs often deploy redundant drives, switches, and channels to provide failover service. Just as disk drives increasingly include onboard controllers and other logic, re Channel switches are becoming more "intelligent," able to detect failed components and to sense what kind of devices are connected to them. This growing sophistication tends to hinder interoperabilitystorage systems, and industry-wide SAN standards have yet to solidify. Consequently, architectures for SAN data management all too often must be developed from the bottom up.
quest for SAN management solutions largely revolves around several object-based protocols and standards that mostly are specified via XML and Java remote method invocation (RMI) interfaces.
Recent Industry Activity
SAN vendors are partnering intensively to distinguish themselves at the same time they are leveraging trade organizations to make their solutions open, consistent, and attractive to a wider array of customers.
Open standards are a key ingredient in IBM's recently announced SAN Gateway initiative. In addition to leveraging expertise from all of its divisions, IBM is establishing "SAN Solution Centers" and joining with vendors such as Tivoli Systems, INRANGE Technologies, Pathlight Technology to achieve interoperable virtual storage solutions.
On February 1st, Sun released version 9 of its Federated Management Architecture (FMA),superset of protocols for managing applications, services, and devices across networks (not just fiber channels, and not just storage devices). Sun's FMA certification partners include Ancor Communications, Exabyte, Fujitsu U.S., Hitachi subsidiaries, Legato Systems, Quantum, StorageTek, and VERITAS Software.
Meanwhile, in March, the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA, www.snia.org) released an open source, Java/XML implementation of a Common Information Model (CIM) repository. The CIM Object Manager for storage systems also leverages the XML-based Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) standard. SNIA's effort is intended to inspire customer confidence that storage systems will be interoperable and reliably managed. SNIA members include all of the preceding companies, plus EMC, IBM, Brocade, Compaq, and dozens of other manufacturers.
Vendors are also hammering out interoperability details through the FibreAlliance (www.FibreAlliance.org), an industry consortium of about 40 companies. The FibreAlliance's Management Information Base (MIB) is an SNMP instrumentation-level specification enabling management of end-node devices, identifying their fabric capabilities and topology. rmation from this MIB could be used directly by a management application or published to a CIM repository managed by SNIA's CIM Object Manager.
Indirect Channel Opportunities
Today, nearly every SAN installed involves at least some customization, and this represents opportunities for resellers. IDC believes that indirect storage sales will rebound and that SAN solutions will contribute much of these revenues (see Storage Systems Distribution Channels Review and Forecast, 1993-2003, IDC #21355, February 2000).
To capitalize on the opportunity that SANs bring, vendors need to provide channel partners with the tools, training, and certification requirements to enable their channels to successfully sell SANs. Vendors that make this investment and are able to recruit and maintain a channel will likely find success, because this type of channel investment can often bring loyalty. With loyalty often comes market share. ure 1 shows that both NAS and SAN indirect revenues are expected to grow faster than direct revenues, and SAN indirect sales will overtake direct sales in absolute terms. This won't happen for NAS sales during the forecast period.
Figure 1 - Worldwide Storage Systems Customer Rev
Could someone in the biz tell the rest of us the indirect/direct definitions?
Bell indirect? Would SUNW be direct or Indirect?
Noticed that Fujitsu was QLGC biggest customer and also looking into what JIRO would allow them to do, perhaps this will help ANCR/Q?
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