By William Fellows
Hitachi Data Systems Ltd climbs aboard the SAN bandwagon today, announcing a raft of OEM partnerships which it will use to build storage area network solutions around its Fibre Channel-enabled 7700E disk arrays as the Freedom Data Networks. HDS’ team sheet reads as follows: Ancor Communications GigWorks FC switches; Gadzoox hubs; Emulex NT-based host bus adapters; JNI’s Jaycor for Sun-based adapters; and Crossroads for GigaBit storage routers. It won’t be re-branding any of the products.
Like EMC Corp, HDS doesn’t support Fibre Channel all the way to the disk – it uses SCSI from the connector – but says it does plan to offer Fibre Channel arrays as soon as it can determine a real benefit, which it doesn’t see in today’s market. SAN vendors are jockeying to get their products attached to each other just as companies did when LANs emerged.
It is also seeking OEMs as well as selling direct. It says storage/server consolidation, LAN-less backup and data migration as the key sales opportunities. It will use Veritas for SAN management, initially licensing Veritas’ Volume Manager and File System, but says it will also use Computer Associates and Legato products going forwards. Like EMC it’s creating an interoperability lab. It has spent $40m on it so far and plans an additional $60m investment.
Freedom Data Networks are available only on SCSI until next quarter. The JNI and Crossroads OEM components will be available in the second half. HDS’ is backing the Storage Area Networking Industry Association’s efforts to bring some standardization to bear on the nascent SAN market, where Fibre Channel is not yet quite mature enough to drive widespread adoption and multivendor interoperability.
