Cisco Adds Virtualization To Storage Switches

Cisco Thursday bolstered its storage-switching platform by adding intelligence to its MDS 9000 line that allows for network-based virtualization. The company also released software that will let customers perform serverless backups through the storage-switching fabric.

The MDS 9000, Cisco's flagship storage switching platform, will support what the company calls "Intelligent Fabric Applications" via the new Storage Services Module and the company's SAN-OS 2.1 software.

Key to the new release is its compatibility with multiple vendors' storage systems and software, enabled via support for the emerging Fabric Application Interface Standard (FAIS), a specification under development by the T11.5 committee of ANSI. FAIS, which has broad industry backing, defines a standard API that will allow different storage applications to interface with network-switching platforms.

EMC and Veritas will likely be the first to offer network-based storage applications built into the new Storage Services Module, according to Cisco. For its part, EMC will support Cisco's Storage Services Module in its storage virtualization appliance, code-named Storage Router.

EMC's Storage Router will take advantage of multiple vendors' intelligent SAN switches, says Tom Joyce, vice president of EMC's platforms business.

"We've been working closely with a number of [switch] players in the industry, including Brocade and Cisco, around virtualization," Joyce says, adding that sales of Cisco's MDS 9000 platform have grown significantly in the two-plus years since entering the market. "It's a very strategic relationship for us."

FAIS will provide a standard way of interfacing various applications and virtualization appliances with different switches, says Paul Dul, Cisco's product line manager for storage networking.

"Cisco believes the fabric is the ideal place to host intelligent storage applications," Dul says. For example, rather than run a volume-management app on the host or the storage system, by running it on the storage fabric, a customer can swap arrays without bringing the system down, Dul says.

Moving intelligence into the SAN switch will be a key enabler of information life-cycle management, where for compliance or other data-retention policy issues a customer may want to move older data from primary storage systems to lower-end devices, Dul says.

"It provides a way to nondisruptively move data from high-end devices to midrange devices to lower-end devices, as that data ages throughout its life cycle," Dul says.

Cisco's serverless backup option for the MDS 9000 will initially allow backup software from CA, CommVault and Veritas to more efficiently protect and recover data by moving that function from the backup server to the fabric via a Cisco's Storage Services Module.

Also included in the new SAN OS-2.1 is an interface Cisco calls SANTap, which will give providers of storage appliances the ability to connect their wares to the company's Storage Services Module. Among those vendors that intend to support SANTap are Alacritus Software, Cloverleaf Communications, FalconStor Software, Kashya, Topio, and XIOTech.