New Cisco router may rewrite IP storage rules

PALM DESERT, CALIF. - Cisco this week will formally enter the storage network market with technology that could help customers get more out of their Ethernet networks.

In a move that will shake up one of the few infrastructure markets Cisco has left unchallenged, the company will unveil one of the industry's first IP storage routers, a product for shuttling data between Ethernet LANs and Fibre Channel or SCSI storage systems. The router is expected to be part of an end-to-end storage network line from Cisco that will work with the company's Catalyst line of switches and routers.

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Cisco, which declined to comment on its plans, will be one of many companies announcing new storage wares this week at the Storage Networking World conference in Palm Desert, Calif. Brocade and McData will also use the event to roll out high-end storage-area network (SAN) switches, while Adaptec and Intel are expected to deliver IP storage offerings.

But it is Cisco's storage gambit that will garner the most attention.

"It's inevitable that Cisco is going to have a huge impact given that it is the dominant infrastructure player already," says Steve Duplessie, an analyst with Enterprise Storage Group. "[Cisco is] going to spend a lot of money and effort on this emerging business."

Cisco's new router is the first fruit of its acquisition last year of NuSpeed Internet Systems for $450 million, and Duplessie expects Cisco to buy another five to 10 storage companies during the next few years.

It should come as no surprise that Cisco would emphasize IP in its storage strategy. Although Fibre Channel-based SANs have emerged as useful systems for handling storage needs in data centers and for keeping storage traffic from bogging down corporate networks, IP storage is gaining momentum because it lets companies extend their Ethernet LANs and avoid some of the training and interoperability issues involved with SANs.

"This plays nicely into Cisco's quality-of-service story in that you can actually route data over the existing network infrastructure without having a separate Fibre Channel SAN and prioritize the data," says Ter� Bracco, an analyst with Current Analysis. "It is also a market that plays on Cisco's strengths, because effective storage networking requires muscular routers."

Cisco, along with Agilent, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and others, last year started work on a specification for moving data over Gigabit Ethernet. Called the IP Storage specification (iSCSI), it provides for the development of routers, switches and controllers that let users implement fast but relatively inexpensive methods for transporting data to and from storage devices.

(Another specification exists called Fibre Channel over IP that lets two or more SANs be bridged over IP using dense wave division multiplexing [DWDM] or Gigabit Ethernet.)

Cisco's new SN 5420 Storage Router is one of the first products to support iSCSI. The two-port device sits between a LAN switch and SCSI or Fibre Channel storage devices, directing traffic between those storage devices and servers equipped with Gigabit Ethernet adapters supplied by Cisco and outfitted with iSCSI driver software.

Cisco's $27,000 router will compete with products from established vendors, such as IBM, and newcomers, such as Entrada Networks and Nishan Systems. Entrada's Silverline-222 router has two Fibre Channel, two MAN/WAN and two Gigabit Ethernet ports, and will start at $10,000 to $15,000. Nishan's $16,000 IPS 3000 switch has up to eight Fibre Channel ports and two Gigabit Ethernet ports and will communicate between Fibre Channel servers as well as storage devices. Both use the iSCSI protocol to transport SCSI storage data over IP.

Eric Goldfarb, CIO/CTO for Macmillan USA in Indianapolis, has a keen interest in IP storage, having beta-tested the Nishan IPS 2000 and 3000 switches as well as Cisco's SN 5420.

"We are primarily looking at [iSCSI] for backup to storage devices attached to the network and at pooling storage and consolidating servers," he says. "I am able to use my existing network resources, and our technicians are already trained in Gigabit Ethernet."

Sources say the SN 5420 router is a precursor to a blade Cisco will ship next year for the Catalyst 4000, its switch for enterprise wiring closets or branch offices.

"[Cisco's SN 5420] is what I call a transition technology," says one beta-version user who asked not to be identified.

Sources close to the company discount that claim. They say that combined with Catalyst 4000 or 6500 switches or Cisco's DWDM equipment, the SN 5420 has staying power.

One interesting aside in Cisco's storage network plan is the company's relationship with storage equipment maker Brocade.

Brocade and Cisco are co-developing a Fibre Channel over IP blade for Cisco's Catalyst 6000, a multilayer switch for companies and service providers. The blade will let SANs be bridged over IP-based WANs or metropolitan-area networks for disaster recovery and backup.

Cisco has stated that the Brocade relationship is a tactical, not strategic, affair. And that may be a good thing because Cisco is incubating a start-up called Andiamo Networks at its headquarters in San Jose that sources say will put Cisco in direct competition with Brocade.

Andiamo is thought to be making a multiprotocol storage switch similar to the SilkWorm 12000, which Brocade is announcing this week. One source said the Andiamo device will also incorporate DWDM technology. The switch is slated to ship late next year.

New Cisco router may rewrite IP storage rules

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