At the high end, the story is much the same. IBM will sell two different models of the director-class MDS 9509, which provides between 32 and 224 ports: the 2062-T07, which runs on DC power, and the 2062-D07, which is AC. Why the discrepancy in price for AC vs. DC? IBM says the DC power supplies cost about two and a half times more than AC ones; there are two power supplies in each base 9509 model. Even the power supplies on this thing are molto expensive.
Now, for the minimum 32-port configuration, IBM's list prices for the 9509 switches are again higher than those of systems from Brocade and McData, which list around $3,000 per port. The AC model of the MDS 9509 works out to $5,918 per port and the DC model comes in at (careful, don't swallow your tongue) $7,158 per port. [Ed. note: In an earlier version of this article, the prices listed for each of the 9509 models did not include line cards.]
But Craig Butler, brand manager in IBM's storage products division, says the MDS 9509s typically will not be configured with just 32 ports. "Most customers are going to order them at much higher port [counts] and spread the infrastructure costs across more ports," he says. That may be true, but the line cards for the 9509 still come in at more than $3,900 per port.
Do Cisco or IBM really believe this first-generation product is worth such a healthy markup over going market prices? Tarek Makansi, director of storage products for IBM, told us last month the switches would be "competitively priced given their value." The market, as always, will decide.
Cisco, for its part, argues that the Andiamo switches bring major new management features to the table, such as Virtual SANs (VSANs), which groups ports into a logical SAN fabric while sharing the same physical hardware infrastructure. In addition, Cisco is preparing an IP Storage Services Module for the MDS 9000 switches -- due out in the first half of this year -- which will provide iSCSI and Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) support (see Cisco's VSANs: Hype or Innovation?).
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