April 12, 2001, 3:29 PM — The end of storage balkanization was proclaimed last week at the Storage Networking World conference here.
The buzz centered on interoperability laboratories and how hardware vendors have committed themselves to making storage-area networking (SAN) products that can exist in different computing environments.
High-level executives from EMC Corp., IBM and Compaq Computer Corp. have promised their machinery will function alongside that of their competitors and with a wide range of servers and operating systems.
"I think the interoperability challenges of the late '90s will be a thing of the past," said Greg Reyes, president of Brocade Communications Systems in San Jose.
The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and Compaq announced that they have broken ground in Colorado Springs on what they said will be the world's largest independent storage network.
The Host Bus Adapter (HBA) application programming interface (API), a critical ingredient to connecting systems and storage devices to more efficient Fibre Channel links, was announced by the Fibre Channel Work Group of the SNIA. Fibre Channel is a SAN protocol that increases connectivity over traditional SCSI connections.
The new standard could help independent software vendors deliver greater functionality to consumers more quickly by using a single standardized interface.
The need for standardized interfaces is increasing as SANs continue to grow, according to the group.
Robert Gray, an analyst at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass., said standards are needed for every transport protocol so users can efficiently implement the technologies. "It's just another positive step forward for the whole storage network concept and marketing," said Gray.
The announcement was the first phase of the group's continuing efforts to adopt new standards to enhance the use and manageability of SANs.
The HBA API standard is being supported by about 25 vendors and industry groups, including Adaptec Inc., Agilent Technologies Inc., the Fibre Channel Industry Association, and Hewlett-Packard Co.
The idea is to create a testing facility that will help developers achieve a truly open SAN infrastructure.
"It's not just about one box or one switch. . . . You have to make sure your network is extensible across thousands of devices," Reyes said.
Larry Krantz, senior technologist at EMC and chairman of the SNIA, said customers are forcing vendors into commonality and standards as they begin to shop for products that can meet their exploding storage needs.
"They don't want to see big vendors fight anymore," Krantz said. "Customers want stuff that works together. They want to create a network andd then upgrade it piece by piece. It has to come."
Linda Sanford, senior vice president of IBM's storage group, agreed. "The promise of true storage networking is at the data-sharing level across any platform or across any operating system," Sanford said.
Reyes said hardware vendors are phasing out the traditional connectivity links between storage and servers and have begun to fully support Fibre Channel, a SAN protocol that increases connectivity over the traditional SCSI protocol.
Reyes said hundreds of software applications are being developed to take advantage of a standards-driven infrastructure, which should help make the dense and complicated world of SAN management far more streamlined and simple.
Tivoli Systems Inc. in Austin, Texas, released SAN management software that conforms to Fibre Channel standards set by the American National Standards Institute. Paul Ellis, Tivoli's director of marketing for the storage business unit, said it's the lack of standards that has slowed the adoption of SAN in corporate America.
Information technology managers don't want to buy software or hardware and then have to worry about it not working, Ellis said. "We're just now getting to the point where we can offer IT managers a real sense of security about this stuff," he said.
The conference was produced by the Mountain View, Calif.-based SNIA in collaboration with Computerworld.
