IP Storage Networking: Straight to the Core

Customers intent on influencing long- term decisions for their storage networking configurations must adapt to technology changes and understand the control points of the infrastructure. The networking shifts represent two parallel changes to traditional concepts of storage. First, the ability to place intelligence within the network, as opposed to hosts or targets, provides an alternate control point to balance traditional vendor lock-in. For example, target-based mirroring and replication functions may now reside within the network, offering a choice to conventional host-based or target-based implementations .

The other change underway relates to the shift from conventional Fibre Channel “only storage networks to those that involve a combination of Fibre Channel and Ethernet networks. Consider the following scenario. With Fibre Channel “focused configurations, subsystem vendors were largely beholden to work with the relatively few number of Fibre Channel switch vendors in order to deploy complete end-to-end solutions. The introduction of IP and Ethernet as an alternate storage interface removes the need for such a partnership. For example, a large subsystem with an iSCSI interface need no longer connect to a Fibre Channel switch.

The implications of these choices have ripple effects for large configurations, particularly in the case where value-added storage services make up a significant portion of the complete solutions. As mentioned earlier, with multiple vendors grappling to sustain profit margins, each will attempt to bundle more and more storage services into their offerings. Therefore, it is likely that a customer would be able to install replication technology across host, fabric, and subsystem platforms. The collection of available choices will force price erosion across storage services and also drive a combination of competition and "co-opetition" among storage vendors.

To date, most of the discussion about competition in the storage networking industry has taken place within each layer of the configuration ”for example, host-based software (Veritas and Legato), fabric (Cisco, Brocade, and McDATA), or subsystems (EMC and HDS). In these scenarios, seemingly organized industry partnerships have emerged only to be split at a later date when the participants could not bring the partnership to fruition.

Additional partnerships have been formed across layers of the storage chain, but these too are in jeopardy as storage services and intelligence migrate between layers and put virtually all alliances at risk. For example, vendors that previously focused only on storage interconnects within the fabric will likely expand to offer storage services such as replication. This will put them in direct contention with vendors offering target-based replication services. How these alliances evolve is open for debate, but no one can deny that market forces will expand future competition between storage vendors across host, fabric, and subsystem layers. These forces are outlined in Figure 4-16.