By allowing that process of heterogeneous data replication, the software would not only free EMC’s customers from a degree of vendor lock-in, but would also compete to at least some extent with the company’s existing SRDF replication software. SRDF is a profitable and successful product that runs on EMC’s Symmetrix high-end disk array. Like other replication software sold by disk array makers, SRDF only allows data to be copied from Symmetrix to Symmetrix.
Heterogeneous replication is however one of the major selling points of virtualization software offered by third-party vendors, and EMC’s move reflects the slow but steady growth in sales of that technology. The take up of virtualization products is likely to be accelerated later this year when they have been ported from the server appliances where they currently run, onto the same smart switches for which EMC is developing software.
Heterogeneous replication is going to become generally generally. It won’t necessarily be in EMC’s interest not to offer it to customers themselves, said Nancy Marrone, senior analyst at the Enterprise Storage Group. Marrone said however that she would not want to predict when EMC would be prepared to launch such software.
According to one source, over one hundred engineers at EMC are associated with creating software for smart switches, which include – among other hardware – Brocade Communication Systems Inc’s forthcoming Fabric Application Platform.
Another high-level source close to the initiative said: What they’re moving [into the network] is data migration services. Disk striping and data caching would continue to be done in the storage array, but it would be supplemented with software [running on a switch] that will allow you to manage a heterogeneous environment. This source said that the new software would not be as sophisticated as SRDF, and so would not replace it entirely. SRDF isn’t likely to be moved lock, stock and barrel onto a switch. It’s got a lot of hooks into the Symmetrix, he said.
Brocade has already named FalconStor Software Inc’s IPStor and Hewlett Packard Co’s Continous Access Storage Appliance as two of the virtualization products that will run on its smart switch, which will ship in the second half of the year. These applications currently run on server applications, where they can act as an in-band bottleneck which chokes storage network traffic. Porting them to network devices will greatly improve their throughput and scalability, and overcome that limitation.
EMC declined to confirm the reports. A spokesman however commented: We’ve always said that intelligence should lie closest to the hardware it is controlling. Referring to the storage system layers of storage array, network devices, and host servers, he said: You’ll see intelligence in all three layers. The spokesman pointed out that in previous statements EMC has said that smart switches are not the ideal platform for all storage management or data movement activities.
Source: Computerwire.
