File Virtualization Poised for Upgrades

Network file virtualization has emerged from a cutting-edge technology into one that's generally accepted in many large data centers. But after a slew of mergers, a new generation of products is due. And it's not clear whether customers will get what they expect, when they expect it.

Case in point: F5 has unveiled the roadmap for its $210 million Acopia acquisition, talking up more scalable platforms and better integration with F5's WAN optimization gear. But F5 is projecting a 12-month timeframe for full rollout.

At the same time, Cisco, which grabbed NeoPath for an undisclosed fee in March 2007, remains mum on what it's going to do with it. "We're busily integrating the NeoPath technology, butnot prepared to share exactly how yet, externally," says Cisco spokeswoman Lee Davis.

And, EMC, which acquired Rainfinity for $100 million in 2005, plans a series of enhancements this quarter, though spokesman Kevin Kempskie won't specify what those will be. He does state that revenue growth for Rainfinity continues in the "double digit" range and cites "considerable customer win momentum since the acquisition."

At least one analyst thinks these and other vendors, including Brocade, which purchased NuView in March 2006 for $60 million, and startup Attune, need to look at customer needs in several areas."File virtualization vendors will need to become more genuinely heterogeneous in the next 12 to 24 months," says Arun Taneja of the Taneja Group. He thinks the vendors need to extend beyond approaches that favor either Windows CIFS or NFS file systems, and he thinks they need to start supporting clustered file systems, such as those from Exanet, Isilon, or HP Polyserve. At the same time, he thinks more scalability and high availability features will be needed.

"IT guys don't want to put anything in front of their SAN or NAS that's going to break," Taneja says. As users depend more on global namespace technology and demand a broader reach for it, they'll also demand better reliability features, in his view.

In a recent survey sponsored by Attune, the Taneja Group found that growth of unstructured data is heralding some urgency for file virtualization systems that can centralize data management and security as well as reduce storage costs by optimizing use of file space.

Of the 238 IT users Taneja queried, 53 percent reported having 11 Tbytes or more of unstructured data in their environments. A full 62 percent reported that their unstructured information was growing between 16 percent and 17 percent annually, driven mainly by Microsoft Office files, email attachments, and backup and archived files.

Clearly, there's a market for file virtualization, but even Taneja's clients aren't necessarily on his wavelength when it comes to what's required of next-gen systems.Attune, for instance, is a Microsoft OEM partner and doesn't plan to change its focus on Windows to encompass a broader reach of file systems. In the view of CEO Alan Kessler, customers using NFS-based systems tend toward proprietary database hardware anyway. "Windows is our basis, even though we work with other systems," he says. If customers really need an NFS-oriented solution that doesn't include Windows, he candidly asserts, he'd point them toward Acopia.

At least one Acopia user validates this view. "I'm using Acopia in an all-NFS environment, so Windows support isn't on my agenda," states Bill Montgomery, manager of IS at content provider LuLu.com. He says he'd like to see features related to tighter integration between the file system and NAS devices, but he nevertheless loves the product. "[T]he ARX is a fantastic product. We never really evaluated Attune's virtualization product, as NFS support wasn't there," he states.

Other users no doubt have their own file virtualization wish lists, and despite Attune's position, at least some will look for a broader reach in their systems.

HP's Polyserve, for instance, continues to be OEM'd by a range of array vendors, whose customers are likely to be exploring file virtualization for the clustering system.

"HP continues to sell and support HP/PolyServe offerings for third party storage arrays as well as HP arrays," states Ian Duncan, director of marketing for HPs enterprise NAS division, in an email. "When PolyServe was acquired by HP, PolyServe had partnering relationships with EqualLogic, 3PAR, and DataDirect Networks at varying levels... and HP relationships continue with these partners."The next few months will likely contain significant news on a number of fronts for the file virtualization market. But the specifics of next-generation products remain sketchy.

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