Cisco Spouts Storage, Security

Cisco outlined its future storage roadmap today, unveiling a host of products, including 4-Gbit/s switches, an encryption service for storage media, WAN optimization enhancements, and a bunch of virtualization technologies. (See Cisco Unveils Data Center Plans, Cisco Intros VFrame.)

Virtualization
Built on technology acquired when Cisco bought Topspin in 2005, VFrame Data Center is an appliance that virtualizes server and storage connections. "It's an orchestration engine that will grab a virtual slice out of a piece of hardware [and] set up a virtual LAN or a virtual SAN," says Bill Erdman, marketing director of Cisco's server virtualization business.

Priced at $59,995, VFrame is available now, although Cisco is not the first mover in this space. "VFrame in its initial incarnation isnt a breakthrough, as Scalent Systems’ Scalent V/OE and parts of the Opsware and BladeLogic products do similar things," writes James Staten, principal analyst at Forrester Research, in a note today. (See Scalent Releases V/OE 2.5, Scalent, HP to Buy Opsware for $1.6B, and BladeLogic Looks to $80M IPO.)

The analyst nonetheless considers VFrame a significant move by the networking vendor. "What makes this product different is the brand name behind it," explains Staten, adding that this opens up the possibility of linking to the rest of the Cisco product line.

Users could also reduce their reliance on physical hardware through VFrame, according to Staten. "Moving to a virtual infrastructure model where software loads, virtual connections, and availability mechanisms are fully divorced from the physical will maximize data center ROI and efficiency."At least one user likes the idea of VFrame, although he admits that virtualization poses big challenges for his firm. "We're definitely exploring this notion of end-to-end provisioning," says Evan Jafa, CTO of business information specialist First American. "[But] we have to convince a lot of folks that this thing will work."

Cisco also announced its N-Port Virtualizer (NPV) software for managing SAN-attached blade servers today. NPV enables a blade switch to present itself as a Fibre Channel HBA to the SAN, reducing the number of Fibre Channel domain IDs used. This improves management and scaleability, according to Cisco. (See Symantec Drifts Into Xen.)

NPV will be available in the fourth quarter on HP and IBM blade switches and on Cisco's MDS 9124 and 9134 fabric switches. Pricing has not yet been disclosed.

Switches

The 9222i modular switch, which is the successor to Cisco's 9216i, offers 18 4-Gbit/s Fibre Channel ports and four separate Gigabit Ethernet ports, compared to its predecessor's 16 2-Gbit/s Fibre Channel ports and two Gigabit Ethernet slots. Cisco has also boiled the 9222i down into a blade form factor that can slot into its 9500 family of directors and 9200 line of switches. (See EMC Certifies Cisco Director and Cisco Adds Intelligence.)

Both the 9222i switch and the MDS 18/4 module will be available in the fourth quarter, although the vendor does not have pricing for the product yet.Also in the switch arena, Cisco unveiled its MDS 9134 fabric switch, a 1-rack-unit high device, which has 32 4-Gbit/s ports and two 10-Gbit/s Fibre Channel ports. "You can take two 9134s and stack them together using copper connections to build a cost-effective, high-density fabric switch," says Rajeev Bhardwaj, Cisco's director of product management.

The MDS 9134 will be available in the fourth quarter of this year, although pricing is yet to released.

Cisco's announcements reflect the continuing momentum behind 4-Gbit/s technology. (See EMC Uncages 4-Gig Clariions, Brocade Boasts Big Quarter, IBM Expands 4-Gbit/s & Backup, and Is Four-Gig Really Baked?) "Four-gig is pretty much the standard now -- most of our customers are moving to 4-gig today," says Deepak Munjal, marketing manager of Cisco's data center solutions. "Some are using it for inter-switch links; some are using it for hosts and arrays."

Despite plenty of vendor spiel surrounding 4-Gbit/s Fibre Channel, it has meant a server upgrade for some enterprises, with many server backplanes unable to keep up with a 4-Gbit/s FC HBA. (See Servers Strain Under 4-Gig FC and How Do I Move to 4 Gbit/s?)

WAN optimization and security

Cisco, which has recently been making a song and dance about its WAN optimization offerings, also upgraded its Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) technology today. (See Cisco Widens WAN Optimization, WAN Optimization Forges On, and Timmons.) "We have enhanced disk encryption now standard on all WAAS devices," says Mark Weiner, director of product marketing in Cisco's application networking division. "With this new software release, the data is natively encrypted."The exec explains that data on hard disks within WAAS products can now be encrypted with AES 256-bit encryption, adding that there will be no cost to Cisco customers with current support contracts. The software upgrade will be available within the next 30 days, he adds.

Also in the security space, Cisco took the wraps off an offering called Storage Media Encryption (SME), which encrypts data moving across the network. "It can encrypt any port on the switch," says Munjal, explaining that this lets users secure data on devices that may not have native encryption, such as legacy tape libraries.

SME offers 256-bit encryption, and is built into the new 9222i switch and the MDS 18/4 module, which go into the MDS directors. Munjal tells Byte and Switch that SME will be available sometime in the fourth quarter, with pricing details due to be released in the next month or two.

Data migration

Also unveiled today was Data Mobility Manager (DMM), a solution for transferring block data across a SAN. Like most of today's announcements, this will be available in the fourth quarter, and pricing has not yet been released.

— James Rogers, Senior Editor Byte and Switch