InformationWeek
March 01, 1999, Issue: 723
Section: Top Of The Week
Top Story -- Storage Race -- EMC Wants To Help Companies Maximize The Value Of Corporate Data. But Some Users Say Its Initiative Is Too Proprietary
Martin J. Garvey
With the advent of the get-it-done-yesterday world of electronic business, virtually every company's survival depends on its ability to quickly locate critical information about customers, competitors, suppliers, and internal operations-no matter where that data resides in the organization. More often than not, that data lives in distributed storage systems spread out across long distances and heterogeneous servers-where it's anything but instantly accessible to all users. This week, EMC Corp. will debut products and services to help companies overcome this limitation and maximize the value of their data.
Along with a cadre of partners, EMC plans to deliver the tools IT managers need to build high-performance, high-capacity, secure, and platform-independent "enterprise storage networks." Based on the existing storage area network concept, EMC's Enterprise Storage Network bypasses current network and SCSI connections to move data among pools of servers and storage devices at speeds of at least 100 Mbytes per second over a dedicated Fibre Channel interconnect.
EMC's offerings, which ship this week, include the first storage system to use 36-Gbyte drives for a total single-system capacity of 9.3 terabytes; a switch allowing virtually limitless connections among storage and servers; software to manage and guarantee data access; and professional services to help customers implement the technology. Also this week, vendors such as Gadzoox Networks Inc. and Legato Systems Inc.-partners with EMC in the FibreAlliance group creating management specs for storage devices-will reaffirm plans to deliver in the next quarter components and software that interact across EMC's Enterprise Storage Networks.
EMC president and CEO Michael Ruettgers says all this further differentiates EMC. "We're already the only one who can store mainframe, Unix, and NT data," he says, "as well as the only one with systems capable of running at five 9s [99.999% availability] or better."
Recent InformationWeek research shows that nearly 85% of IT executives at large companies are interested in deploying storage area networks. But while other vendors also offer their own versions of SANs, EMC will use its Enterprise Storage Network to be first to integrate distributed data on its high-performance Symmetrix system. There's one caveat, though: EMC's architecture still doesn't work with storage products from competing vendors. To provide anywhere, anytime access to information, IT managers must consolidate all their OS/390, Unix, and Windows NT data onto Symmetrix.
Storage competitors such as Compaq, Sun Microsystems, Storage Technology, and most recently Dell Computer say that's an expensive proposition, since these devices can cost as much as $6 million. They say customers who don't wait for an open standard risk frustrations with EMC's proprietary approach.
But some organizations say it's worth the expense. Fortune 2,000 customers with an online presence, as well as new Internet retailers and Internet service providers, are accumulating data faster than ever. These companies want to rein in the data on distributed storage systems before additional growth makes managing information nearly impossible.
Take Travelers Property Casualty, the $9.9 billion insurance company in Hartford, Conn. Travelers has long used EMC Symmetrix storage in its data center; it's now embracing that system for distributed computing, too. The company, which is moving most of its applications to a Web architecture, expects to double its data requirements within the year. By consolidating on EMC, says Walt Zilahy, VP of IS for the distributed environment division, Travelers plans to provide "the manageability, performance, and serviceability needed for our Internet users, agents, and, ultimately, consumers to get to the right information."
The company is testing Symmetrix storage tied to dozens of Unix and Windows NT servers using EMC's new high-performance Fibre Channel switch, the Connectrix Enterprise Storage Network System. When the project is fully under way, all 23,000 internal Internet users on those servers will have immediate access to what Dave Croweak, second VP of IS, calls "mission-critical information," including data warehousing and call-center data.
Connectrix is key to EMC's Enterprise Storage Network because it enables multiple LANs and remote data to be supported by a single Symmetrix system. Its 64 ports connect servers or Fibre Channel hubs at speeds of 100 Mbytes per second; linked hubs can support multiple servers or more Connectrix switches, giving the Enterprise Storage Network unlimited scalability. Software offers IT staff detailed views of switching activity.
The Connectrix switch solves another problem for Travelers. Before, distributed storage wasn't always backed up, and sometimes was lost-along with business opportunities that having access to the right data presents. "Storage was fragmented by server, and backup and recovery was difficult and expensive," Zilahy says. "The Enterprise Storage Network lets us service all servers, not only a select few."
Too Proprietary?
At least for now, EMC is meeting the market's needs, says David Hill, a senior analyst with the Aberdeen Group. "The philosophy now is to have heterogeneous servers to connect with the SAN," he says. Croweak at Travelers agrees. While his division used to buy storage from server vendors as part of a system purchase, he says the "focus is now on connectivity with server platforms, not other storage."
But EMC's storage competitors argue that's not in most users' interests. The high cost of consolidating on EMC systems, they say, is all the more reason for customers to wait for the Storage Networking Industry Association-of which each is a member, as is EMC-to come up with an industry standard for moving data across SANs consisting of different operating systems, servers, and storage systems.
"We're working on solutions to get people the same capabilities as EMC," says Walt Hinton, chief strategist at StorageTek. Instead of putting the intelligence on a proprietary controller, as EMC does, Hinton says an open approach requires putting interoperability intelligence on the SAN. "If you can have choices and the same capability," he asks, "wouldn't you rather have that?"
Some customers would certainly prefer that. "I used EMC in the past, and they do a few niche applications quite well," says Marc Hansen, VP of system architecture for New York apparel retailer J. Crew Inc. "But they're way overpriced." Hansen has 1 terabyte of data on Sun A5000 Fibre Channel storage-and clear expectations for SANs when the technology matures. "I want to buy Sun today; and next week, when they're not price-competitive, I can mix somebody else's stuff in," he says. "EMC locks you into their solution." Sun A5000 systems start at just under $50,000.
EMC counters that it's not against supporting an open standard. The company says it hopes that the management interface being developed by the FibreAlliance it founded could serve as the foundation for a broader storage interoperability specification. Hewlett-Packard's storage division, EMC says, is one of the 12 vendors that have already signed on, and the SNIA board meets this week to review the specs EMC is sharing with the group. But EMC also points out that the association is unlikely to deliver a standard for at least two years-a point the other storage vendors don't dispute.
"We've been involved with these efforts, but they take too long," says EMC's Ruettgers. "It's important that we have the interoperability standard, but customers need the storage consolidation sooner."
That's true for the National Association of Securities Dealers. Gregor Bailar, CIO and executive VP, says every company must move quickly to leverage the power of the Internet over the next two years to "get a unique set of data out to the people they sell to. Everyone should think about data, analyze the data, and sell the data that they are proprietor of."
The NASD is testing the new Symmetrix 5930 storage system to support Compaq, Dell, HP, Sun, and Unisys servers. Bailar manages 46 terabytes of data today, and thinks he could be grappling with 300 terabytes by the end of 2000. "I want the ability to wire up [consolidated] storage in a farm, access it through multiple platforms, and manage it all with diagnostic tools we require for high availability," Bailar says. The Symmetrix 5930 offers him the high capacity he needs, as well as remote mirroring, load balancing, path failover capability for NT and Unix clusters, and EMC InfoMover for sharing NT, Unix, and mainframe data within Symmetrix.
Imperfect Alliance
Still, some analysts say EMC's FibreAlliance has some flaws. "When you get into a SAN, there have to be base-level standards for how everything connects," says Jon Oltsik, a senior analyst with Forrester Research. "In the user network, there's TCP/IP, SNMP, and CIM, and network operating systems." Oltsik says Sun's StoreX software framework, also supported by some of the same partners EMC has, is closer to this vision. StoreX allows interoperability via network services, so it can offer better plug-and-play capabilities than FibreAlliance, he says.
"The point of this," adds Jeff Allen, VP of marketing for Sun Storage, "is, What are you doing to connect to the Internet, and develop universal plug and play?" He calls FibreAlliance an interconnect standard that works-"if you're part of their club."
Scott McIntyre, business line manager for storage networking at Legato Systems, a member of both FibreAlliance and StoreX, tries to put the matter in perspective. "We see the FibreAlliance as an attempt to drive the rest of the industry to a standard quicker than they perceived it was happening," he says.McIntyre says Legato was interested in joining FibreAlliance because EMC had already signed on the component vendors whose products Legato's storage-management software must work with.
As its FibreAlliance initiative shows, EMC may have the clout to dominate storage networks on its own. Its share of the external RAID storage market has grown from 25% in 1996 to 35% in 1998.
Still, even analysts who like EMC's approach say there's no reason every company should flock to the vendor. Aberdeen's Hill says EMC's architecture will appeal most to users with a large installed EMC base. When interoperability among different servers and operating systems isn't an issue, more limited, less pricey solutions may be appropriate. Dell, for instance, last week said it now offers a Fibre Channel SAN for up to four Windows NT servers-for one-third or even one-quarter of what an EMC network would cost.
That's fine with Michael Carey, manager of networks and systems at Centocor Inc., a biopharmaceutical firm in Malvern, Pa. He has EMC Symmetrix systems in place for HP-UX servers but balked at an EMC Enterprise Storage Network for his NT implementation because of its cost. Instead, he'll implement Dell SANs for 100 NT servers that support databases and other apps. Dell's SANs will be based on new PowerVault storage products, including the company's first eight-port Fibre Channel switch.
Still, EMC CEO Ruettgers doesn't seem worried by new competitors or standards issues-yet. "Business value is with the information, and storage is where the information lives," he says. If companies don't get a handle on their data, adds Ruettgers, "CEOs like me will become furious with the IS executives-and there will be an increase of IS executive turnover."
-with additional reporting by Mary Hayes
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