And Sanera isn't as out there as it hopes. Many of the startups in our Top Ten Private
Storage Networking Companies list are working on similar ideas. These include support for gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel, iSCSI, InfiniBand, and anything else out there, as well as backwards compatibility with existing networks, Mendez says. Designed and integrated at the ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) level for redundancy and port failover capabilities, the switch is aimed at large data centers and IXCs (interexchange carriers).
The switch will transparently failover at the port level so that the integrity of the data is maintained in a failover situation, says Mendez. This is thought to be essential for storage switches built to backup mission critical company data. He believes the switch will also outdo todays price/performance ratios by ten to twenty times.
As Juniper did to Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), Sanera is hoping to steal a considerable chunk of Brocades market share. It claims that with neither baggage nor decade-old code it will whip past Brocade with a high-end product designed for scaleability and reliability.
Keep in mind here that this sounds like what every startup says. And concomitant to having no baggage, of course, is having no customers.
Still, Saneras credentials give it a fighting chance.