The concept of stackability may be trendy, but the idea of small SMB-attractive SANs isn't new. Indeed, Qlogic's announcement adds to the ongoing efforts of storage networking vendors, Qlogic included, to make Fibre Channel gear more accessible to small enterprises and even small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), which traditionally have eschewed its cost and complexity.
In November, Qlogic released a "SAN starter kit" program through an equipment bundling deal with Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) (see QLogic Bundles Up With HP). The idea was to attract SMBs to Fibre Channel by selling easy-to-install kits of equipment and software through OEMs. Competitor Emulex Corp. (NYSE: ELX) also adopted this strategy with the release of new HBAs and 4-Gbit/s embedded switches for OEM use (see Fibre Channel: HBA Hog Heaven).
There also has been a flurry of activity in the so-called midtier SAN market. Back in September, Cisco released the MDS 9100, a 20- and 40-port fixed-port SAN switch geared for these smaller-than-enterprise applications (see Cisco Fixes on FC Switches).
There's good reason for getting onboard with SMBs now: Storage consolidation and data management are causing growth in the low-end segment (see Charles Stevens, Corporate VP, Enterprise Storage Division, Microsoft Corp.), and vendors are eager to convert new users to the virtues of Fibre Channel, rather than lose them to emerging IP-based solutions.
Not everyone thinks stackable is the way to go. "Stackable technology is an interesting idea, but it didn't provide market leadership to the Ethernet switch vendors," says Jay Kidd, CTO of transport services at Brocade. He says Brocade already offers an 8-port switch, the SilkWorm 3200, which he says is sold by OEMs for less than the price quoted above for Qlogic's stackable 8-port.
Bob Friday, Chief AI Officer for Juniper Networks, explains how the advanced technology is transforming operations.
Contact center leaders from 8x8, Awaken Intelligence, and 360insight discuss the importance of agent experience.
AI may force enterprises to rewire parts of their data centers so they are fully optimized to run such workloads. The question is do you use Ethernet or InfiniBand?
