HP to resell Cisco switch, enhance StorageWorks
HP to resell Cisco switch, enhance StorageWorks
Hewlett-Packard has beefed up its storage suites, and may become the second major vendor to announce it will resell Cisco Systems new line of Fibre Channel switches. The announcement comes less than a week after Cisco revealed a reseller agreement with IBM.
In what is a major milestone in Cisco's planned entry into the storage-area network (SAN) marketplace, Hewlett-Packard (HP) has reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding with Cisco.
HP is close to green lighting the qualification of Cisco's MDS 9000 series of Fibre Channel switches. HP currently has the switches in its labs, testing them during the first half of this year with the intention of offering them to customers. Beginning in the first half of this year, HP plans to offer the Cisco MDS line of fabric switches in its StorageWorks SANs.
Last week, IBM became the first company to officially announce a reseller agreement with Cisco for its first Fibre Channel switches. IBM expects to finish testing the gear and to start shipping it to customers by the end of the first quarter.
Cisco's storage switches and directors came from the company's buyout of Andiamo Systems in April 2001.
HP has also improved two of its entry-level and midrange StorageWorks virtual arrays. The company installed faster 146GB drives in its VA7110 array, bringing the midrange appliance to a maximum of 6.5TB, six times the capacity and twice the performance of its predecessor, the VA7100, HP claims.
The company claims it has doubled the storage capacity of its modular, entry-level StorageWorks MSA1000 array to six terabytes, which has 80 per cent better performance due to the larger, faster 146GB disk drives. The MSA1000 supports up to 42 hot-pluggable, 146-GB universal disk drives and has the lowest price of an entry-level SAN array from any major vendor, HP says.
Howard Elias, senior vice president and general manager, HP Network Storage Solutions said in a statement, "HP is the clear leader in SANs, and we have raised the bar in the entry-level market with this enhanced version of the HP StorageWorks MSA1000."
"This array continues to meet customer needs for the easiest and lowest-cost DAS-to-SAN transition. In addition, we have expanded the ability to deploy the MSA1000 in demanding, heterogeneous environments."
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