Switch Homework Pays Off

CHICAGO - An open mind is key to getting the best Fibre Channel switches for an enterprise, according to stories told by a user panel today at the Storage Decisions conference here.

Three members of the panel recently implemented new switches and went with a different vendor than they originally expected.

Chris Collins, manager of infrastructure planning at international food retailer Ahold USA, late last year started planning to consolidate her company’s SAN to reduce complexity and implement data mirroring from Boston to South Carolina.

She says she had 1,200 Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD) ports in edge switches spread over six SANs. She wanted directors at the core and edge, and wasn’t impressed with Brocade’s 64-port Silkworm 12000 directors. But Collins didn’t think she would end up picking Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) over McData Corp. (Nasdaq: MCDTA).

“We were reluctant to look at Cisco,” Collins says. “But they surprised us with their commitment to Fibre Channel. They’re a networking company and brought up issues we hadn’t thought of. They just wanted to make sure everything worked together.”Collins’s group was impressed with Cisco’s virtual SAN (VSAN) and FCIP features, and found their support “terrific.”

“We took a flyer with them,” she says. Ahold converted 1,300 ports to Cisco in the main data center in one weekend earlier this year, and plans to convert another 1,300 ports in October. Perhaps the best part was the ensuing price war when Brocade got wind of the change. “Brocade got extremely aggressive on pricing,” she says. “We let ‘em duke it out, and they came within a few dollars of each other. We said, ‘OK, let the technology win.’ ” That’s when they picked Cisco.

Lars Linden, principal of State Street Global Advisors in Boston, says he might have picked Cisco for his storage consolidation project in late 2002, except Cisco hadn’t yet delivered its MDS 9500 and 9200 directors. “I was really excited about what they showed us in beta,” he says. He couldn’t wait, though.

Linden also had a Brocade shop, but Brocade was in the process of buying Rhapsody at the time and he wasn’t sure where its roadmap was going (see Brocade Scoops Up Rhapsody). So he looked at McData.

“McData was one I hadn’t considered,” Linden says. “But I met McData and I was impressed not only with the technology, but their ability to understand our vision and grow with us as we use intelligence in switching that wasn’t available 18 months ago but is available now.”While combining State Street’s three data centers into one, Linden’s group installed McData core and edge switches. He’s currently evaluating Cisco’s FCIP routers and McData’s switches acquired from Nishan technology (see Ellacoya Stands Alone and EMC, McData Make a Connectrix).

Although he says he’s happy with McData, Linden admits, “If we had been talking to Cisco 12 months later, we might have been in a different state.”

Tim Arland, SAN/storage architect of service provider Axciom, says he was reluctant to upgrade his Brocade edge switches to directors when he upgraded his six SANs. He considered the Silkworm 12000 switches too complex and not scaleable nor reliable enough. But he evaluated switches just as Brocade rolled out its Silkworm 24000 256-port directors, and the new model relieved his fears. “They were the best bet for this customer,” he says.

Moral of the story: Carefully consider all your options before choosing SAN switches.

— Dave Raffo, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch0