NEW YORK -- A single console for managing switches and storage is the missing feature storage administrators seem to want the most, judging by a panel discussion about switch vendors at the Storage Decisions conference here today.
The administrators also had a few unsettling comments: They agreed that iSCSI, 4-Gbit/s Fibre Channel, and 10-Gbit/s links can wait, and they would like to move intelligence away from the storage system but not necessarily onto the switch. Three of the four said they're happy with the status quo among switch vendors. Only one said he is willing to embrace product from a startup.
Further, panelists Peter Carucci of the New York Stock Exchange, Abdul Marani of Coca Cola, Gabriel Sandu of Maimonides Medical Center, and Patrick Swartz of First Data's Digital ROM Services agreed on one thing unanimously: They have to manage storage through one console and their switches through another, and they're tired of that.
We use McData
SANavigator to manage our SAN and IBM Tivoli
software to manage storage, said Marani, who uses 700 McData ports to manage 140 TBytes of storage on an IBM SAN. I wanted to use an integrated tool but couldnt find one.
As for emerging technologies, the administrators agree they dont need iSCSI or faster speeds, but they like to know their vendor will support them.
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