Cisco expanded the capabilities of its multi-protocol director-level and fabric switches this week with the introduction of a line card and software intended to let IT managers host storage applications in a storage area network fabric.
The company announced at CeBIT in Hanover, Germany, the Fibre Channel MDS 9000 Storage Services Module (SSM) and SAN-OS 2.1 software, which allow software and appliances – from vendors such as Kashya, Alactritus, FalconStor, Cloverleaf, Topio, Xiotech and EMC – to interoperate with Cisco’s MDS SAN switches.
The 32-port SSM fits in an MDS 9000 director-level switch or MDS 9200 fabric switch, where it consolidates and virtualizes resources from different storage systems so applications running on the SSM can migrate, replicate or back up the data in the pool.
Among the capabilities of the SSM is its ability to back up network data without the assistance of a server. Cisco is enabling the ANSI-approved Extended Copy (XCopy), which offloads data movement from backup servers to the SSM, thus reducing backup windows and allowing customers to do faster backups.
“The SSM will make it significantly faster to back up and restore data from storage through the network directly to the secondary storage medium rather than have to drag it first to the media server and then out to the secondary storage,” says Stephanie Balaouras, analyst for the Yankee Group.
Michael Passe, storage architect for the CareGroup/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, says the SSM will help him virtualize his storage environment, as well as back up his network faster.
“We intend virtualization to be part of our SAN environment,” says Passe, who has 50 terabytes of EMC storage data he expects to pool in the next year.
“The SSM also makes sense for some of the backup problems we’ve been having,” says Passe. “XCopy will help me get data off of disk and onto tape faster. With the SSM I wouldn’t have to run the backup through my application servers, so I will get better performance and less impact on applications during production hours.”
Computer Associates, Commvault and Veritas are expected to support this capability with their backup and recovery products.
With the SSM, Cisco is also reducing the latency and increasing the network performance in synchronous data replication between SANs connected over distances with dark fiber, dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) or SONET links, thus allowing customers to copy data over longer distances. The company claims a 30% increase in performance over a 77-mile DWDM link.
The SSM – which processes as many as 320,000 I/Os per second, according to Cisco – uses the ANSI-approved Fabric Application Interface Standard (FAIS), which presents a common method for developing SAN applications and appliances.
SAN-OS 2.1 is the new version of the MDS 9000 operating system; in combination with Cisco’s SANTap Services protocol, it allows the SSM to work with third-party software-based appliances. Cisco expects that EMC and Veritas will be among the first vendors to deliver storage applications based on the SSM. For instance, EMC’s much-anticipated Storage Router will use the SSM to virtualize storage environments. Veritas is expected to announce that its Veritas Storage Foundation software will operate on the SSM, sources say.
The SSM, when available from systems manufacturers such as EMC, IBM and HP, will cost 20% to 25% more than their 32-port Fibre Channel modules.
