Switching to new markets
Storage area network switch vendors are broadening their focus, trying to bring in new customers on both ends of their market spectrum.
A number of vendors at last week's NetWorld+Interop trade show in Las Vegas were talking about, but, in some cases, not showing a new class of 64-port, 2 gigabit per second Fibre Channel switches. These products are designed to consolidate the switching needs of the massive storage installations used by large enterprises.
At the same time, these companies are privately showing new lines of much smaller, eight-port SAN switches aimed at smaller businesses. These are intended to support what's now being called entry-level SANs. With prices below ten thousand dollars (in a couple of cases much below) storage vendors are hoping to attract customers that previously couldn't afford to purchase a storage network.
Being introduced along with these switches is new management software intended to ease the job of integrating the new products into the enterprise. Significantly, companies see better management software as key to gaining new customers. Smaller customers have trouble finding skilled managers, and large enterprises have SANs so vast they defy easy management without better tools.
One major vendor, Brocade Communications (www.brocade.com) is introducing both the Silkworm 12000 at the high end, and the Silkworm 3200 at the low end. Brocade's switches are usually sold as OEM products by vendors including Compaq and IBM. You can expect these switches to emerge both under Brocade's name, and under the names of its partners.
An executive from QLogic (www.qlogic.com) said that another major change with switches being introduced by his company, both an 8-port and a 64-port switch, is that the price per port is about the same as it is for Gigabit Ethernet. This is a significant reduction from the formerly stratospheric prices charged by SAN vendors.
Brocade's new switches are shipping now, while QLogic's 64-port switch will be out in the immediate future, according to a company spokesman.
Does your company use Brocade fabric switches? Share your experience in our TalkBack forum.