But cheap, the SN 5420 is not. Some analysts noted that its introductory cost, $27,000, seemed high for what is essentially a two-port router.
"It's not priced for the low end," said Glen Ingalls, a principal research analyst at Wit Soundview (Nasdaq: WITC). "It remains to be seen what the demand is for putting storage networks over IP. The question is what Cisco is coming out with in one to two years."
Indeed, the SN 5420 looks like a simple but crafty vehicle for entree into a larger market. A flat box the size of half a kitchen drawer, the SN 5420 could easily be shrunk into the form of a network card. For example, it might make a natural fit for, say, adding Fibre Channel to Cisco's Catalyst Ethernet switches. That would give Cisco the potential to develop large-scale combination Fibre Channel/gigabit Ethernet switches.
"Yes, we could shrink this down and make it a blade on any of our products -- and we're thinking about that," says Cree.
Indeed, as Light Reading has already reported, Cisco is working on a number of more substantial storage switches, including one project underway at an internally supported and funded company called Andiamo Systems Inc..
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