This is a week old, and may have been posted before, but it won't hurt...
PC Week via NewsEdge Corporation : High-end and entry-level products ship,
but users seek a happy medium
By Carmen Nobel and Mark Hammond In Redwood Shores, Calif.
New SAN hardware, software and services from both EMC Corp. and Dell
Computer Corp. are a shot in the arm to the product segment but fall short of
answering all of enterprise users' needs.
New disk arrays, a switch and management software from EMC, announced
last week, together offer increased data capacity and simplified storage
management. Similar hardware, plus new software, from Dell offers storage
area network capabilities at a lower price.
While some IT managers are encouraged by the new products, many said their
organizations will be slow to implement SANs because EMC's high-end
systems are expensive and Dell's low-end systems connect only four nodes.
Two of EMC's arrays--the Symmetrix 3950, which supports Windows NT, Unix,
OS/400 and PC LAN operating systems; and the 5930 systems, which support
mainframe operating systems--boast a maximum storage capacity of more than
9 terabytes. EMC, of Hopkinton, Mass., also rolled out new Symmetrix models
with as little as 1 terabyte of capacity. Pricing ranges from $290,000 to $5.5
million.
EMC also introduced the Connectrix Enterprise Storage Network System, a
switch that enables up to 64 connections between Symmetrix systems and
distributed servers. A Connectrix system starts at $528,000. On the
management side, the company unveiled EMC Connectrix Management
software, which enables users to manage three Connectrix systems from a
central location and is priced at $50,000.
In addition, the company introduced Enterprise Storage Network Professional
Services, which offer assessment, planning, design and implementation of
SANs.
All the new EMC products and services are available now.
Meanwhile, Dell is trying to drive nascent SAN implementations --particularly in
the Windows NT environment--with new PowerVault SAN hardware and
software, which it unveiled at an event here late last month.
The OpenManage software, which enables multiple servers to share a single
storage system, was developed in conjunction with Microsoft Corp. and
supports four Dell PowerEdge servers running NT, said Dell officials in Round
Rock, Texas.
New hardware includes the PowerVault 50F Fibre Channel Switch, an eight-port
switch that enables data distribution from servers to storage devices, and the
PowerVault Fibre Channel Optical Host Bus Adapter, which provides a
fiber-optic connection of up to 500 meters from servers to the SAN or directly to
external storage. Pricing for the 50F switch begins at $1,350 per port, while the
adapter starts at $1,479. Both are available now.
The PowerVault 35F Fibre Channel Multiport Bridge, available this month,
connects SCSI-based tape libraries to a Fibre Channel network. Prices will start
at $5,000.
SAN backup software supporting Dell's system is available now from Computer
Associates Inc., Seagate Software Inc., Legato Systems Inc., Tivoli Systems Inc.
and Veritas Software Corp., Dell officials said.
The company is also expanding its technical consulting services to include
storage planning, consolidation and performance, and backup and recovery.
That is a good start, but four servers do not a SAN make, according to Dell
customers considering SAN implementations.
"We're interested in a much larger implementation," said Lorin Olsen, senior
manager of EIS Network Systems at Sprint Corp., in Kansas City, Mo. "It's good
to see that Dell has entered the market, but right now EMC has a much more
compelling offering."
Dell's foray into the SAN market is certain to exert price pressure on competitors,
said John McArthur, an analyst at International Data Corp., in Framingham,
Mass.
"What's important is that it's a Fibre Channel switching architecture for NT,
delivered by Dell with their direct sales model," McArthur said. "I expect it to be
very price-competitive and put the fear of God in a lot of PC server suppliers."
Fibre Channel switching is generally faster than a hub-based architecture.
Sprint is still evaluating its SAN needs. While there are enough products out
there to make a decent SAN possible, the company needs a reason to justify an
implementation. By consolidating storage, SANs save money, but there's
nothing about them that actually creates revenue, Olsen said.
"We have consolidated the mainframe data centers and are working at doing the
same things with distributed systems," Olsen said. "[But] when you have a
choice between creating revenue and saving money, revenue always wins."
EMC can be reached at (800) 424-3622 or www.emc.com. Dell is at (800)
289-3355 or www.dell.com.
SAN products target both ends of the spectrum
<<PC Week -- 03-08-99>>
Company New Products
High End
EMC Six new Symmetrix disk arrays
Connectrix Enterprise Storage Network System
Enterprise Storage Network Professional Services
LOW END
Dell OpenManage software
PowerVault 50F Fibre Channel Switch
PowerVault 35F Fibre Channel Multiport Bridge
Fibre Channel Optical Host Bus Adapter
[Copyright 1999, Ziff Wire]
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