The support for NetApp gear is no surprise, given that IBM has already announced its plan to sell OEM’ed or rebadged NetApp gear later this year, in order to fill out its NAS portfolio. The integration between the two companies’ products will see IBM support the SVC when used with NetApp arrays serving data at the block level. When NetApp’s gear delivers data at the file level, the SVC’s virtualization engine will be interoperable with NetApp’s V-series virtualization software.
IBM declined to say, however, when it will qualify NetApp for the SVC, or when it will start shipping re-branded NetApp hardware. The latter is likely to happen soon, as the OEM deal was announced in April.
IBM also declined to say when it will qualify the SVC for use with its mainframes running Linux. This will allow customers to use the SVC to attach non-mainframe supporting mid-range disk arrays to a Linux mainframe. Ironically, IBM is the only tier-one disk supplier offering a midrange disk array that works with mainframes, namely its DS6000 baby Shark.
Hitachi Data Systems’ virtualizing TagmaStore array is already supported by HDS when attached to NetApp’s hardware, which HDS has been reselling for some time. EMC said that its forthcoming Invista virtualization product will not be qualified for use with NetApp’s gear, at least not initially. An EMC spokesman said the company’s customers are not asking for NetApp integration in any significant numbers, and added that one reason is that NetApp sells integrated solutions and not many, if any, generic FC arrays for use without NetApp filers.
