Veritas Software Corp is trying to whip up some enthusiasm for some common storage area networks (SAN) interfaces among the platform, disk and switch/hub/router vendors. Currently, such networks are largely proprietary and use single-vendor disk storage and hardwired hub/router/switch technologies. Veritas thinks SANs should offer the same kinds of capabilities as LANs, linking many devices to many servers and ultimately providing any-to-any connectivity between data and nodes. In a storage area network, data can be moved and managed without it having to pass through a host computer. But to make it practicable for users, products have got to be much more interoperable and plug-and-play than they are today. They should, Veritas believes, incorporate Fibre Channel technology to some degree and data access, management and backup software or else they’re simply SCSI bus replacements. By 2000 Veritas would like to see hardware-based SAN APIs come into use and for homogeneous data sharing to supplant device sharing. By 2001 it hopes common operating system APIs will be in use across multiple platforms and for heterogeneous data sharing – any device having access to all data from any point on the network – to be a reality. Users will benefit, it thinks, because the cost of implementing storage systems should plummet, users will have multiple paths to each storage resources, scaling costs should be incremental, storage can be centrally managed and backup/restore made easier and better. Veritas hasn’t actually reached the point of defining specific protocols – device vendors employ some differing interpretations of zoning and the IEEE has some embryonic efforts underway – but is casting around the industry for support. It claims several of its existing partners are already hooked into its plans and will announce support over the next few weeks. Veritas will use its recently-forged relationship with LSI Logic’s Symbios semiconductor and storage unit (CI No 3,458) as the basis for much of its SAN development. The two are to announce that they will integrate Veritas’ storage management software with Symbios storage and together develop new products for the SAN market. Along the way Veritas will enhance its Volume Manager file system product, which is practically a de facto standard, to enable different platforms to access the same data on a storage node. Today it’s common for Unix and NT data to be stored on the same disk but very uncommon for each to have access to both sets of data. Veritas will build a new set of SAN- oriented software atop its existing Storage Foundation, NetBackup and HSM storage management software, so that it can get the industry to agree some common protocols, customers will get the code as part of their upgrades. It is readying several new products for a September launch including a new Cluster Server (on HP-UX and NT in addition to Sun), a new version of Storage Manager with what it calls a network visualizer, and plug-and- play programs for devices it will call Storage Appliances. SAN software will live on the host system and on each storage system but users won’t need to acquire a SAN-specific device to host any of it. Veritas says one of its Fibre Channel switch OEMs – Brocade, Gadzoox, Ancor or Vixel perhaps – will shortly OEM the LookOut product from its May acquisition of Windward (CI No 3,413).
