IP Storage Has a Pulse

Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) might have cut back on its IP storage development -- having laid off most of the staff of NuSpeed, the iSCSI router startup it acquired in mid-2000 -- but there's still plenty of movement going on elsewhere in this sector (see Cisco Lays Off NuSpeed Team and NuSpeed Duo Departs Cisco).

IP storage switch startup Nishan Systems Inc. announced yesterday that it has completed qualification with EMC Corp.'s (NYSE: EMC) Symmetrix Data Replication Facility (SRDF) and MirrorView products -- a rigorous cycle of interoperability and compliance that has taken over a year to attain (see EMC Blesses Nishan).

"It's not a trivial process to go through," says Tom Clark, director of technical marketing at Nishan. "You go in with a good product and come out with a better one."

Clark says Nishan has had numerous field sales opportunities with EMC, but the dealbreaker has always been the fact that its gear was not on EMC's compatibility list. "It's a major milestone in terms of opening up field sales," he says. Nishan is quietly hoping that its qualification with EMC will eventually turn into a reseller deal, as Nishan achieved with Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) (see HDS Adds IP Support).

In addition to EMC's data replication software, Nishan is qualified with HDS TrueCopy; Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) StorEdge 9900 TrueCopy; Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) SANworks Data Replication Manager (DRM); XIOtech Corp. REDI-SANlinks; LSI Logic Corp. (NYSE: LSI) SANtricity Remote Volume Mirror (RVM); and Storage Technology Corp. (StorageTek) (NYSE: STK) Remote Volume Mirror (RVM). Nishan has also completed IBM Corp.'s (NYSE: IBM) TotalStorage Proven program.