ORLANDO, Fla., October 22, 2001 - Demonstrating progress in its storage networking initiative launched earlier this year, Cisco Systems, Inc., the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, today announced several updates to the "IP Access to Storage" or the iSCSI (Internet Small Computer Systems Interface) solution, which includes the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router, the world's first commercially available iSCSI networking platform.
The Cisco Storage Networking Initiative and its four solution areas outline Cisco's comprehensive strategies for unifying data and storage networks, which lowers customers' total cost of owning and managing storage as part of their overall IT infrastructure. The initiative is based on Cisco AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data), an open, standards-based architecture that defines how companies can integrate technologies such as storage networking seamlessly into an underlying network foundation.
"In the six months since Cisco officially defined its plans for entering the storage networking market, this industry has seen phenomenal activity in both technological innovation and multi-vendor cooperation," said Mark Cree, general manager of the Storage Router Business Unit at Cisco. "Cisco is in the forefront in driving both innovation and industry-wide standardization of storage networking technologies. We have generated considerable momentum in a short period of time, which our announcements today show."
New Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router Customers
Leading the updates is the announcement of select enterprise and service provider customers of the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router. These customers have all turned to iSCSI as a cost-effective way to perform applications such as remote backup, server/storage consolidation, and access to centralized corporate data over long distances.
Komatsu America International Company: The North American subsidiary of Komatsu, Ltd., a worldwide manufacturer of heavy machinery and electronics, is currently evaluating iSCSI as a way to access and store block-level data running from a high-end Web application server to an IBM Enterprise Storage Server using Ethernet/IP networks. Komatsu considered other IP storage technologies to meet its needs, but after consultations with its systems integrator, Solution Technology, Inc., Komatsu America chose iSCSI, mainly for performance considerations.
"We learned that the application we wanted to use required the performance of block-level data access," said Tom Pekara, Manager of Marketing and Web Systems, Komatsu America. "Of the choices we had for block-level access, we went with the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router because iSCSI met our required performance needs but far more cost effectively than other solutions."
University of Houston-Downtown: As a public-funded entity with fixed IT budgets, the University of Houston-Downtown, like most universities, is always evaluating new, cost-effective technologies. For this reason, Hossein Shahrokhi, UHD's IT director, chose iSCSI to consolidate the university's storage resources and perform applications such as centralized remote backups of the university's Windows NT servers located throughout the campus.
"Besides iSCSI, there are other storage networking technologies that could deliver the features we were looking for, of course," said Shahrokhi. "But we selected the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router and the iSCSI approach because it offered the storage networking performance we needed at a substantial cost savings to alternative solutions. It also gave us the ability to leverage our investment in our networking infrastructure."
Data Peer, Inc.: Managed data and storage service provider DataPeer, Inc., based in the New York metropolitan area, turned to iSCSI as a way to centralize its storage resources securely and efficiently among multiple customers. Based on the ubiquity and familiarity of Ethernet/IP technology, iSCSI allows different customers on different networks to access the same SAN hosted at DataPeer's redundant data facilities.
"By implementing iSCSI through the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router, we are able to achieve two immediate advantages," said DataPeer CEO Michael Kofman. "One, we can reduce our own costs by more efficiently using our existing storage resources. And two, we are able to expand our customer base and generate more revenue because we can now reach out to new customers on distant IP networks."
New Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router Features
Through the latest firmware upgrade, the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router is now able to support consolidation of storage using tape devices, both automated tape libraries and single tape drives, in local area and wide area network configurations. Cisco is working with tape automation vendors to ensure interoperability with the leading tape-based storage systems. For example, in August Quantum|ATL announced verification of remote replication of data using the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router with Quantum|ATL P-Series libraries. Also, Cisco announced today that the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router is interoperable with VERITAS NetBackup for Windows NT, data protection software for shared tape transport and tape library environments. For more Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router interoperability news, go to newsroom.cisco.com and click on the headline "Cisco Continues its Push into the Storage Market with Completion of Interoperability Testing in Key Storage Environments."
Cisco also announced updates to its Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows NT, and Sun Solaris versions of its iSCSI drivers. Pricing and Availability
The Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router firmware version 1.1.5 is now available for download at no charge to customers at www.cisco.com (CCO). All new Cisco SN 5420 Storage Routers will ship with the latest firmware installed. The new iSCSI driver versions are also available now and are free for download on CCO.
