McDATA and StorageTek in FICON alliance
McDATA and StorageTek in FICON alliance
Storage networking solution provider McDATA and storage services and solutions provider StorageTek have signed an agreement that will see StorageTek resell McDATA's Sphereon 3232 FICON (fibre connectivity) fabric switch.
StorageTek says the move makes them the first storage vendor to bring the benefits of native FICON to market via what it says is a more cost-effective and flexible fabric switch solution.
Working with StorageTek's newly FICON-enabled T9840B tape drive, the Sphereon switch allows enterprises to consolidate their tape network infrastructure, taking FICON connectivity to the edge of the storage area networks to deliver a substantial performance increase over ESCON channels.
"Working closely with a technology leader like McDATA, StorageTek is taking proactive steps to help our customers reduce their total cost of ownership for their networks," says Jill Kenney, StorageTek corporate vice president, Worldwide Marketing and Corporate Strategy. "Companies now have a solution that frees premium director-class switch ports to support other data traffic."
"Partnering with StorageTek to bring FICON CUP to the edge of the FICON SAN was a natural choice given their leadership in the half-inch tape industry," says Mike Gustafson, McDATA senior vice president of worldwide marketing. "By coupling the high-performance FICON T9840B tape drive with a McDATA Sphereon 3232 fabric switch, end users get one of the best performing, most flexible, and economical FICON tape drive consolidation solution available."
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