On the political front, Cisco had two separate engineering teams developing storage networking technology at the same time. The Andiamo Systems Inc. bunch were much closer to Ciscos headquarters [ed. note: slap-bang in the middle, actually!] and had a much more influential position within Cisco than did the NuSpeed team. Analysts say this left the NuSpeed group pretty much isolated in the North Woods.
Throw in the lousy economy and the resulting lack of adoption of iSCSI, and the NuSpeed crew never really had a chance, observers say.
To cut Cisco some slack, "iSCSI was advertised as a potentially disruptive SAN transport at the time of Cisco's acquisition of NuSpeed," says Steve Denegri, managing director of system area networking research at RBC Capital Markets. "But given iSCSI's slow adoption rate, which can largely be blamed upon weaker economic forces, the choice to downsize the NuSpeed team was expected."
When you boil it down, IP storage wasnt the slam-dunk Cisco was expecting, and it still has to prove itself as a storage interconnect. "I think that, while [NuSpeed] is a $500 million shame, iSCSI will play a big role inside Cisco one way or another," says Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst with the Enterprise Storage Group Inc.
In the meantime, Cisco needs to establish a presence in storage networking now if it hopes to be a major contender when IP SANs eventually come of age, analysts say. Its MDS 9000 series Fibre Channel switches and directors are an attempt to hammer a stake into the ground today (see Cisco Announces Andiamo Switches).
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