Cisco and IBM: Network-Hosted Virtualization Simplifies Management of SANs

October 22, 2003

Cisco Systems and IBM today introduced a jointly developed solution that will help storage area networking (SAN) users lower the cost and complexity of managing their data. The IBM TotalStorage^TM SAN Volume Controller for Cisco MDS 9000 provides users with more flexibility in purchasing, provisioning and utilizing their storage resources.

News@Cisco spoke with Soni Jiandani, vice president of marketing for the Storage Technology Group at Cisco, about the implications of this announcement for the SAN market.

Cisco Systems and IBM just announced their collaboration on network-hosted storage applications. Can you briefly describe what these applications entail?

Soni Jiandani: Cisco Systems and IBM have teamed up to offer their customers a network-based storage management solution. This jointly developed solution is based on a modified version of IBM TotalStorage^TM SAN Volume Controller virtualization software built specifically to be hosted on the Cisco MDS 9000 Caching Services Module. This integrated solution enables a single point of control for volume provisioning, data migration, data replication, and point-in-time snapshots, directly from the network.

SANs were first developed to help overcome the administrative complexities and costs associated with managing storage as individual resources directly attached to servers. Today, we're in the next phase as companies look to gain even more operational efficiencies and cost reductions by consolidating their small SAN "islands" into larger, more intelligent networks using platforms such as the Cisco MDS 9000 family of multilayer intelligent directors and fabric switches. These new network-hosted storage applications for the Cisco MDS 9000 are the next step in the continued enhancement of SAN technologies. With these integrated solutions, customers will gain additional benefits such as the ability to dynamically add or delete storage capacity on demand without having to take devices offline. Essentially, it'll give customers the ability to move data among devices without worrying about what device it's coming from and what device it's going to, and with the best performance possible.

What are the components of the system?

Soni Jiandani: The Cisco MDS 9000 provides the multiprotocol, highly available and intelligent SAN switching capabilities, and the IBM SAN Volume Controller virtualization software is the intelligent storage application. The Cisco switches offer advanced networking storage features such as traffic control, troubleshooting and a variety of intelligent network features. To that, IBM's software introduces an added layer of storage intelligence - with attributes like virtualization (volume management), data replication and point-in-time snapshot.

Specifically, the components include the Cisco MDS 9000 Caching Services Module (CSM) for the Cisco MDS 9500 Director series and the Cisco MDS 9216 Fabric Switch, the IBM TotalStorage^TM SAN Volume Controller Storage Solution for Cisco MDS 9000 (virtualization software) and a Windows-based server hosting a GUI interface using xmlCIM.

How is this technology different from other offerings in the market?

Soni Jiandani: With this product, Cisco and IBM are providing a new way to do virtualization, or the ability to consolidate multiple and disparate storage resources into logical pools. Virtualization itself isn't new, but network-hosted virtualization is a step forward. Essentially, Cisco has taken its innovation in the data networking market and - in conjunction with software vendors like IBM - introduced that expertise to the field of storage networking.

Unlike other proposed solutions, Cisco's network-hosted storage applications are integrated into the Cisco MDS 9000, enabling them to take advantage of its industry leading high-availability, scalability and intelligent network service features. Customers get Cisco networking intelligence and IBM storage intelligence in a single system.

This is consistent with the Cisco philosophy of focusing on systems-level intelligent networking rather than on individual components. It's a great example of how we've worked with an application from another company and combined it into a single solution that benefits customers.

What makes these new applications compelling for customers?

Soni Jiandani: Hosting applications on SAN switches (also referred to as network-hosted storage applications) is the next evolutionary path in storage networking. It's going to enable customers to build larger, more intelligent SANs.

There are three key benefits to the applications that Cisco and IBM have announced. First, they offer a single point of control and administration, which simplifies SAN management and increases the amount of storage an administrator can manage in a uniform way. Second, they offer the ability to make changes to storage capacity on the fly - what we call dynamic provisioning. That means no downtime for planned outages, maintenance or backups. Third, the advanced copy services in the network provide the ability to copy across disparate storage resources, enabling the appropriate class of storage to be used.

Based on these benefits, customers can increase their storage use by creating a single pool of storage across multiple storage controllers, enabling lower cost storage to be used for appropriate applications and functions.

This isn't the first collaboration between Cisco and IBM. Tell me about this alliance.

Soni Jiandani: Cisco believes strongly in working with other companies and combining our expertise to produce integrated products and services that benefit customers. The IBM SAN Volume Controller for the Cisco MDS 9000 is a fulfillment of Cisco's strategy to make our SAN switches an open platform on which industry-leading storage software vendors can migrate their applications.

And you're right - this is just the latest in a long line of successful engagements between these two companies. The IBM and Cisco Global Strategic Alliance creates and delivers scaleable, proven and secure e-enabled solutions that deliver increased productivity, revenue growth and improved business agility to our joint customers. The two companies are drawing on their strengths in Internet infrastructure, e-business systems, software and services.

You described the Cisco MDS 9000 as an open platform. Why is that important?

Soni Jiandani: Yes, our approach is that this is an open platform - one that is continually evolving. One of the evolutionary paths is to integrate with software vendors, which gives our customers the opportunity to have even more intelligent applications.

Open also implies that Cisco's SAN products comport to industry standards. To meet this objective, Cisco is very active in the development and promotion of industry standards for storage networking. For example, Cisco and IBM co-authored the original specifications for the Internet Small Computer Systems Interface, also known as iSCSI. Today, iSCSI is an IETF-ratified standard and many companies have started shipping products that comply with it. Cisco is also active in the development of standards addressing SAN security, which is growing in importance as more data travels outside the confines of data centers and into more open, remote network environments. In this arena, Cisco holds the co-chair position in the Fibre Channel Security Protocol, or FC-SP, committee and has co-authored the FC-SP draft standard.

In the storage management space, Cisco and others recently submitted proposals that will allow software vendors to migrate their applications to hardware platforms using a common API, or application platform interface. The ANSI T11 committee, the standards organization that oversees development of standards for storage and storage networking industries, has formed a working group called Fabric Application Interface Specification (FAIS), whose charter is to produce a common API for the storage industry. Once ratified, there will be an even greater level of co-development work between hardware and software vendors, which will result in even more application choices for SAN users.