Three Days in the Desert

PHOENIX -- Storage Networking World Spring 2003 -- It wasn't just the fact that SNW was once again held in a Sun-Belt city at an overpriced, antiseptic resort overrun with unruly toddlers that made this week's show familiar.

One of the central themes of this Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA)-sponsored event was, once again, vendor cooperation and interoperability -- the very things the industry has not had the best track record in delivering.

But this time, storage networking vendors actually hit tangible milestones. Namely, SNIA came to a consensus that it was ready to lock down Version 1.0 of the Storage Management Interface Specification (SMI-S), which it is offering free to anyone who cares enough to download it. The group also staged a nine-vendor SAN switch fabric interoperability demo, with the end goal of allowing storage systems suppliers to certify and support heterogeneous SAN fabric configurations (see Users Cheer Interop Demos and SNIA Releases SMI-S Version 1).

Not everything at SNW had such, um, broad resonance, though. Here's a compilation of other interesting things we saw and heard at the show:

Shirt HappensOne surreal and somewhat disconcerting piece of this show, as at SNWs past, was the presence of dozens of people wearing identical, beige polo shirts emblazoned with the SNIA logo. This taupe brigade milled about SNIA's demo area.

In their identical SNIA garb, it was difficult to tell which company any one of them worked for -- ahhhhh... and that's the point, don't you see? One for all, et cetera. But the sandy-colored uniforms had the weird effect of making the group look like a militia (well, a casual militia). Or more benignly, perhaps a Buddhist collective from Monterey.

But there was one guy who was wearing an olive green SNIA shirt: Phil Mills, chairman of SNIA's Supported Solutions Forum and a technical staffer in IBM Corp.'s (NYSE: IBM) storage systems group. Did this indicate some special status? Are some SNIAns "more equal" than others?

Nope. Turns out they had simply run out of the beige ones. Phil, get that shirt ironed next time, won't you?

'There Are No End Users Here!'Blood was pumping, veins were pulsating, eyes twitching. No, this wasn't the scene at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, but the reaction of one livid audience member to a panelist's comments at one of the last sessions of the show.

Many vendors grumbled that the end-user turnout was low -- very low. Frustration about the subject reaching a boiling point at the SNIA's IP Storage Forum panel discussion on Wednesday night.

"In our industry, we like to say the toughest job is being an end user," said Ahmad Zamer, chair of the IP Storage Forum's iSCSI subgroup and a product line manager in Intel Corp.'s (Nasdaq: INTC) LAN Access Division. "If you leave it to the vendors, every product they make should last forever... Yet, how many end users here are happy with their storage today?" Nobody in the audience raised a hand. "No end-users..." Zamer continued.

A large man in the audience wearing a Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) shirt gave several exasperated sighs before jumping to his feet, pushing his chair back angrily in the process. "There are no end users here!" he yelled. "There are no end users here!" Then he stormed out before we could catch his name, whereupon the discussion continued among the vendors who remained.

Storability to Buy StorageTek? [Cue Laugh Track]Storage resource management software player Storability Inc. has apparently signed a seven-figure deal with Deutsche Bank AG and says it has already started to consolidate management of the financial giant's 40 data centers worldwide.

That deal seems to have gone straight to Storability president and CEO Tim Leisman's head (see Storability Gets 'Compaqted'). Speaking of his firm's strong relationship with Storage Technology Corp. (StorageTek) (NYSE: STK), which bought Storability's services unit last year, Leisman jokes that a merger could be on the horizon "if we can get them for the right price." If we haven't got our sense of humor, what have we got? (Deutsche Bank, at least.)

Hoop Dreams

Mark Sorenson, VP and general manager of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s (NYSE: HPQ) storage software division, says some startups still don't understand that the glory days are over. Evidently, he's been doing a bit of window shopping of storage software firms lately, and in the process he has had two completely different kinds of conversations.

"In some companies, the management team thinks it's 1999, they have this incredibly high valuation, and they think they're all going to go out and buy a basketball team after they get acquired," says Sorenson. "Then you go talk to their VCs, and they say, 'We just want any return on our investment at this point.' " Smells like a buyer's market, then.Maxx Factor

MaXXan Systems Inc. is thiiiiiiiiiiis close to officially shipping their high-scale SAN switch. One of the last checklist items is Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval of the system to ensure its electromagnetic emissions don't interfere with communications equipment or sterilize the neighbors.

"Basically, we're looking at this as being GA [generally available] today," says Jeff Silva, MaXXan's VP of marketing. No customers to announce yet, though he says the MXV320 has been in FT [field trials] at four sites since January.

Other MaXXan developments: It soon plans to release a standalone appliance that runs FalconStor Software Inc. (Nasdaq: FALC) applications, using the same form factor as the NAS gateway it developed using Veritas Software Corp. (Nasdaq: VRTS) ServPoint NAS (see Veritas Scraps ServPoint Strategy). Also, its switch has been certified for Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) storage systems, according to Silva.

The main thing MaXXan needs to do is start knocking down sales. "We're definitely in customer-acquisition mode," says Silva. [Ed. note: Yeah, you and two dozen of your closest friends...] He tells us that the startup is set with funding through the first quarter 2004 even if it doesn't generate a single dime of revenue, but that MaXXan expects to raise additional funds later this year (see MaXXan Axxes Staff).The New Nu Thing

A group of former NuSpeed/Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) staffers -- recently cut loose after Cisco amputated most of its iSCSI router division -- have formed a new venture dubbed WinStorage (see Cisco Lays Off NuSpeed Team and NuSpeed Duo Departs Cisco).

There's nothing on WinStorage's site yet, since it's only two weeks old. Doug Ingraham, the outfit's VP of marketing, says cryptically that it's targeting "midtier" storage. WinStorage's slogan is "conquer storage complexity." Does the name imply its product plans have something to do with Windows? "Or maybe winning in storage," says Ingraham, unhelpfully.

The company, based in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, was founded by Ingraham and three other ex-NuSpeeders: Jim Schneibel, ex-VP of sales; Robert Randall, ex-manager of engineering; and Mike Tierney, ex-finance director. The WinStorage crew is currently seeking Series A funding. "We're planning trips out to Sand Hill Road to see the VCs," says Ingraham.

Just remember, guys: It's not 1999 anymore.Todd Spangler, US Editor, and Eugénie Larson, Reporter, Byte and Switch