In any event, the larger question is whether the options will help CNT differentiate its director-class FC switch amidst an increasingly rough-and-tumble market. The dominant players in this space are McData Corp. (Nasdaq: MCDTA) and Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD), with Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) now coming on strong with its entry into the market (see HP Moves Hard on Cisco).
Walsh, though, maintains that CNT's business model is unique among its competitors, because the company leads with consulting and integration services instead of simply selling boxes. The MAN and WAN extensions to the FC/9000 fit into that model because they allow CNT to provide customers with a full range of storage connectivity options, he says.
"It's not just about technology -- it's about our services and solutions, and that's where we're different," he says. "It's not the next gee-whiz-bang thing that customers are clamoring for, although we do think we have some gee-whiz-bang things." [Ed. note: We smell a marketing slogan here...]
He also notes that the FC/9000 provides up to 256 nonblocking 2-Gbit/s Fibre Channel ports. The next closest major competitor is McData with its 140-port Intrepid director. Cisco's MDS 9509 allows up to 224 ports in a single system, but in this configuration the switch is oversubscribed, which means each port is unable to send data at the full line rate (see Cisco: Oversubscribed by Design).
CNT does acknowledge that some customers will always want to keep MAN and WAN connectivity separate from their SAN infrastructure. "But many are saying it makes my life easier to manage if it's integrated with the switch," Walsh says.
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