Vendors form 10Gbit/sec Ethernet Storage Alliance

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April 16, 2008 (Computerworld) Aaron Martin likes to plan ahead. One year ago, the IT manager at Loro Piano, an Italian luxury goods manufacturer with U.S. operations in New York, plunked down $30,000 for a 10Gbit/sec Ethernet storage array from Nimbus Data Systems Inc. At the time, it was one of the only iSCSI-based storage systems available that took advantage of 10G bit/sec Ethernet speeds, with most systems supporting 1Gbit/sec Ethernet.

As a result, Martin had to do a bit of research to piece together the rest of the infrastructure, including an upgrade to his existing Cisco Systems Inc. Gigabit Ethernet switch and, later, a 10Gbit/sec Ethernet network adapter from Neterion Inc. Even his new ESX servers from VMWare Inc. -- which he bought at the same time as the Nimbus array -- did not support 10Gbit/sec Ethernet but instead tagged the Nimbus system at 1Gbit/sec Ethernet each.

"I had a lot of systems coming at the Nimbus, one G at a time," he says, including other physical servers that used Nimbus for CIFS-based storage. "Even though I couldn't use it at full capacity, I could use it as an aggregate because I had one big, fat pipe always connected to the Nimbus." The array consists of 12 500GB drives, configured with four terabytes of capacity.

Now, with the formation this week of the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Storage Alliance, users who want to implement 10Gbit/sec Ethernet storage systems may not feel quite so far out on the frontier. Nimbus created the alliance in partnership with switch vendors Arastra, Inc., Force10 Networks, Inc., Fujitsu Microelectronics America, Inc., Fulcrum Microsystems, Inc., as well as adapter vendors Mellanox Technologies Ltd., Neterion and NetXen, Inc. The purpose of the alliance, according to Thomas Isakovich, CEO at Nimbus, is to create "a multi-vendor ecosystem," focused on raising awareness of 10Gbit/sec Ethernet as "the superior open and unified platform for storage and networking." Isakovitch also expects blade server vendors and systems integrators to join.

Compared to 4Gbit/sec Fibre Channel, a 10Gbit/sec Ethernet-based storage infrastructure can cut storage network costs by 30% to 75% and increases bandwidth by 2.5 times, according to Isakovich. Plus, since you can combine block and file storage on one network, you can cut costs by 50% and simplify IT administration, he says. By bringing together switch, storage and adapter vendors, Isakovich says, the alliance can demonstrate to customers the interoperable pieces now available for 10Gbit/sec Ethernet storage deployment. "The perception is that there isn't a complete product family," he says. "This will help bring it all together."

"There are very few players in the 10Gbit/sec Ethernet realm, so having them all available in an alliance makes more sense ," Martin agrees. "Since I was so early in market, I was really watching it, so it fell into place for me, but having an alliance to say, 'Here are the players in the industry,' could get the market moving and make it more prevalent to IT managers."