Wake Me When We Get To Yotta Yotta Yotta Bytes
thestandard.com
September 4, 2000
Information Overload
An avalanche of data makes storage companies hot – and highlights two competing technologies
By Mark Boslet
Min Christopherson doesn't mince words when he talks about the surging demand for data storage at his Silicon Valley startup.
"Storage is my biggest concern," he says. "It's physically, financially and technically very challenging."
It doesn't matter how many lanes you add to the information superhighway, adds Christopherson, director of information technology at the genetics research company DNA Sciences. If there is no place to park a car, drivers have no where to go.
Companies around the world are faced with an explosion in data fueled by the Internet economy. IBM researchers say that at the end of last year the volume of online data – accessible either on the Internet or on corporate networks – reached one "exabyte," or 1 million terabytes. (One terabyte is equivalent to 1 million 300-page books, or 400 hours of video.)
All that data has to be stored somewhere. Though it's little talked about outside the offices of chief technology officers, solving the storage crunch is as important to the growth of the Internet Economy as is building out high-speed connections.
It's already eating up a growing share of corporate information-technology budgets. The storage market will increase from $34.3 billion this year to $46.4 billion in 2003, according to market researcher IDC. A Forrester Research (FORR) report based on a survey of 2,500 firms around the world predicts that storage expenses will rise from 4 percent of the companies' budgets to 17 percent in the next three years. Companies already spend more on storage than they do on Web servers.
To handle this staggering growth, the data-storage industry has shifted to networked storage. Instead of setting up unconnected storage "islands," or attaching storage disks directly to servers to which access is limited, data is consolidated and stored in pools on the network, where more computer users can reach it and extra equipment can be easily added. This shift began in 1997 with the emergence of storage-area networks, or SANs. It took off last year with the arrival of more-capable storage-network switches – devices that direct traffic on a network – from upstart companies such as Ancor Communications (ANCR) , Brocade Communications Systems (BRCD) and Vixel (VIXL) .
Now a second storage industry evolution is on the horizon, one that could complete the move to unfettered universal access that storage networks promise. Instead of setting up SANs using fibre channel – a software protocol that essentially acts as an online postal system – many vendors are designing networks based on the Internet protocol, the routing mechanism that defines the Internet.
IP will offer significant benefits when paired with high-speed Ethernet networking gear that should reach the corporate market later this year. Data could be more easily routed nationwide or around the world, overcoming the inherent distance limitations of fibre channel. Corporations also could save money building one storage-and-data network instead of two.
All of which means that the prospects for storage companies are excellent. Though they're less sexy than the optical networking and wireless companies that have made big splashes in the public markets in recent weeks, storage companies are just as hot.
"Everything we do in our lives has a digital wake to it," says Jim Rothnie, senior VP of product management at storage vendor EMC. Something as mundane as buying a tube of toothpaste online ends up as a few bytes in some corporate database somewhere.
The market's expansion is drawing out the big-name tech companies. In recent weeks, Compaq Computer (CPQ) , IBM and Sun Microsystems (SUNW) have rolled out new storage products. Hewlett-Packard (HWP) released new high-end storage equipment last year. Meanwhile, lesser-known market leaders such as Network Appliance (NTAP) continue to develop equipment with even more capacity.
This rapid growth is also raising the stakes in the struggle between companies deploying fibre channel and those moving to Internet protocol networks. Switchmaker Brocade, for instance, shipped more fibre-channel connections in the most recent quarter than in all of last year.
Fibre channel has a decade of development behind it, says Jay Kidd, Brocade's VP of product marketing. Customers that have installed four- to 10-switch fibre-channel networks are adding switches, sometimes using fiber-optic cable to link more than a dozen data centers in a city. Kidd claims that in three years there will be at least 10 million to 15 million fibre-channel connections worldwide – enough, he says, to "ensure the long-term survival" of the technology.
But IP-based storage startups such as Nishan Systems have targeted established companies like Brocade and Vixel. By the end of the year, Nishan expects to announce new equipment for IP storage networks. "SANs are a good idea," says Randy Fardal, Nishan's VP of marketing. "They were just implemented with the wrong technology."
IP backers argue that just as the Internet expanded the reach of computer users, IP will expand the reach of data centers. Fibre channel, unlike IP, has been focused on the "local" storage-area network, not broader wide-area networks, says Dave Wells, CTO of IP-storage startup Giganet.
IP storage gained the imprimatur of a corporate juggernaut in late July when Cisco Systems (CSCO) agreed to buy NuSpeed Internet Systems for $450 million.
NuSpeed's technology, still under development, will connect SANs to each other and to other networks. In a research note, U.S. Bancorp (USB) Piper Jaffray analyst Ashok Kumar said that Cisco had become the "proud owner of [fibre-channel]-killing technology.''
Cisco's entry has also given young companies such as Nishan new attention. "When we were pitching our story last year, nobody was believing," says Nishan CEO Aamer Latif. The Cisco-NuSpeed deal "has given us a lot of credibility."
Still, technological hurdles remain, and will take some time to solve.
"If we were starting with a clean sheet of paper today, and if some of the technology that is not done was done, we would probably use gigabit Ethernet and IP," says Bill Miller, CTO at Storage Networks, an outsourcing company that uses fibre channel.
Established storage vendors aren't standing still. Brocade is partnering with Cisco to send fibre-channel traffic over Cisco's networking equipment, in an attempt to extend the distance it travels. Vixel has a similar arrangement with Lucent Technologies (LU) .
They may be backing a fading horse. "The convergence of the storage network and the traditional IP network is inevitable," says Steve Duplessie, senior analyst at the Enterprise Storage Group. "IP has to win in the long run."
(dead-tree version has a cool graph with terabytes, petabytes, exabytes, zetabytes, and (no kidding) yottabytes...) |
