US storage area network vendor Gadzoox Networks Inc, will be unveiling its Capellix storage switch next month, at the Spring NetWorld+Interop show in Las Vegas, to fill a perceived gap in the storage networking market. In addition to the cost aspect, this option also has operational implications, as it requires more complex addressing and other changes in order to integrate the switches.
On the other hand, explained Gadzoox vice-president of engineering, Kurt Chan, Capellix is indistinguishable from the protocol standpoint, from a hub yet has the advantages of a switch. It is thus, the company says, a plug-and-play option, as well as costing about half what a fabric switch does. Capellix is also a chassis-based box, a feature chosen deliberately to give it scalability. Not every SAN application needs a backbone, until you have to bridge to a LAN or need to connect tens of thousands of nodes, Chan explained. When that time comes, Gadzoox reckons the scalable nature of Capellix should be a cost-saving factor, as more blades can be added into the same box.
Gadzoox has also built network management aspects into the new offering. There are Java applets, should the user want to manage via a browser, and the company will also be offering Ventana SAN Manager, a package which can be integrated into systems such as Tivoli or OpenView to handle the storage network administration functions.
At the moment, Gadzoox sees no other storage switches in the market right now. Competing products are fabric switches with FL ports, Chan explained, but even so they are not compatible with pure loop-based switching, so they require revamped adapters, device drive and array controller.
San Jose, California-based Gadzoox is a privately held company, and according to international sales director Michael Printz, expects to float, probably on Nasdaq, over the next 12 months.
