Microsoft is also releasing Multipath I/O to provide multiple links between Windows servers and storage components for improved failover and reliability, which till now has been largely Fibre Channel's domain.
"A lot of customers have isolated servers not attached to their SAN, and they'd like them to be," said Lorenson. "But the cost of running a Fibre Channel link or a host bus adapter is not very economical for one or two servers."
All this tracks very closely with what Microsoft has been doing in the storage sector during the last 18 months--making it easier to use Windows 2003 in SAN environments, said Nancy Marrone-Hurley, senior analyst with the Enterprise Storage Group. "None of them are momentous new technologies, just new features that make it easier to implement SANs and manage in the Windows OS," she added.
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