Of course, Sun also resells the full line of Brocade and McData switches. But QLogic's Berry says the 64-port fabric switch fills a previously unmet gap in the market. "Unless Brocade convinces customers that only Brocade switches can go into their environment -- and that does happen -- I think we will get traction with this product," he says (see Sun Stuffs Its SAN Bag and Sun to Resell McData Gear).
The University of Utah Health Sciences Center is using two of the new QLogic switches to consolidate access to multiple Novell Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) and Sun servers. "Adding several additional switches would have made the configuration way too complicated," says Mark Beekhuizen, IT director of the hospital. "We wanted to abandon susbsystems and grow our data efficiently in one place, not in 100 places."
The QLogic SANbox2-64 starts at around $26,000 for a 16-port system ($1,500 per port) and is about $64,000 for 64 ports. QLogic's SANsurfer management software is included in the price. The system provides incremental expansion via eight-port line cards; eventually, QLogic plans to deliver a 10-Gbit/s port module for the SANbox2-64, which would provide ISL capability (see QLogic Starts 4-Gig Quest).
The switch has already been shipping in the channel for about two months and is generally available from Sun this week.
Todd Spangler, US Editor, Byte and Switch
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