Intelligent Fabric Update

In September 2004, ESG published a report entitled the Future of Network Based Storage Intelligence (you can find it at www.enterprisestrategygroup.com - it may cost you money to see it).  Since then, a lot has happened - but one thing of note hasn't - the market.

Now, since we are always right (eventually), I'm trying to figure out what the deal is.  We said that moving block storage services from the arrays and servers into the network would be one of the most important storage paradigm shifts since the advent of the block storage network itself.  That statement is still true, so why isn't it commonplace yet?

The technical rationale for such a move hasn't changed - to consolidate and standardize disparate implementations of storage services that currently reside on various arrays and various servers to a centralized, standardized platform(s).  Services such as volume management or data copy or data migration are handled differently by different operating environments and platforms.  That means different people with different skills need to know different things.  Different doesn't scale.

So if the motivation is valid, and the direction clear, then why aren't we there yet?  Good question - there are several factions to blame.

First, the place this stuff should reside is on a switch.  The switch isn't a "nice to have" but a "need to have".  It's the junction box of all roads IT - everything traverses the switch, and as such, that is the place to to do deterministic things.  The switch guys dramatically underestimated the engineering effort it would take to make their platforms capable of layering intelligence on their boxes.  They figured that since they already did hard stuff - cracking packets at wire speed type stuff, that creating a replicate packet and shipping it to some other location couldn't be that tough.  They thought "how hard can simple volume management be to run?"  It turns out it was hard.

I'm happy to (finally) report that the smart switch guys appear ready to rock.  Cisco and McData are finally ready, and Brocade not only seems ready - but (yes, this is me saying this) they seem to be leading.  They already have their "data mobility" ARM software out running on their Rhapsody platform all over the place - and it appears to be working fantastically.  Anyhow - all of them are going to go prime time with storage intelligence capabilities this year - 2006.

The second issue has been the software guys.  The mainstream guys got all hot and bothered initially, and put a lot of effort into porting their stuff to the switch guys, but when the switch guys ran into the brick development walls, the ISV's put the brakes on.  I don't blame them - they already have platforms to sell onto.

EMC and Incipient were the only two real software development efforts left standing in the last year or so.  EMC had its own issues, as hardware companies turned software juggernauts will have, but finally is out with InVista and pushing it madly.  From what I can see, the early production results are  tepdily positive - people are rolling out InVista.  Incipient is really the only true independent software player in this market (EMC stuff is designed to support EMC stuff, believe it or not).  The good news is they have no other business to distract them, the bad news is until some of these switch guys get their act together and ship some boxes, Incipient has no place to sell its wares.  Now that the box guys are finally in the game, I suspect we'll start seeing some real momentum.

What will be interesting now that smart switch fabrics are starting to happen in earnest, is who will be too slow to react?  EMC by default will come out the top guy initially - they will do the usual thing - put a massive amount of effort and resources into building the market.  We know IBM is a player already with SVC, and we think they are getting ready to do real battle via their Cisco relationship.  They hate EMC, and will not sit idly by while InVista tries to steal their girl, so to speak. HP's strategy has been to draft off of IBM/Cisco (I presume with Incipient, but don't know for sure) which is smart - as long as they can react once the light turns green.  McData and Brocade have all the footprint, but also have a problem with their customer base.  The OEMs who sold all their gear have other agenda's, so finding the correct balance will be tricky.  Regardless, McData and Brocade each should realize that the future depends on themselves - and they can't be forever kept as concubines if they want to survive and thrive.  Sun should make a play - they are ones who said "the network is the computer" for crying out loud.

The winners will be the ones who get out first and stay put.  This market will roll out exactly like the Veritas volume manager success story of days of yore.  Veritas was brilliant giving away its volume manager to Sun - who shipped a gazillion copies into the world. Then a funny thing happened - people started using it.  Once they used it, there was no reason to go anywhere else - so Veritas found itself with a big giant install base to which it could unfairly take advantage of by selling value added software upgrades and ancillary products.  Absolutely brilliant.  Who will be the Veritas of the new age of the smart switch?  I don't know - but whoever it is, once they get footprint, it will very hard to replace them. 

So, hang in there my friends.  Nobody ever moves fast enough, but the intelligent storage network train has just left the station.  You might read smarter peoples views on this such as Dave Hitz's blog on virtualization HERE  or Hu Yoshida's HERE .