Sanera Systems Inc., a startup in deep stealth mode, is pegging itself as the Juniper Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: JNPR) of the SAN switch industry, as it prepares to do battle with Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD).
Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., Sanera is building what it calls a very, very large, high port density, multiprotocol SAN switch, expected to ship in the first half of 2002.
Its several orders of magnitude higher than anything commercially available in the SAN space today, claims Alex Mendez, general partner at Storm Ventures, one of the companys early investors.
Brocade's current Fibre Channel switch is expected to scale to 128 ports this year.
Inrange Technologies (Nasdaq:INRG) and
McData Corp. also have products in that general range.
Thats low end, according to Mendez. The Sanera box will be well over 500 ports. A good target, but not an order of magnitude (10x) above the others, let alone several.