Gossip surrounds NetApp partnering

Network Appliance has been the subject of speculation over several deals it is rumoured to be talking over with Cisco Systems and Hitachi Data Systems.

Several industry publications in the US have quoted industry "sources" in the past week as saying that NetApp was considering deals with the two companies. The deals would both be aimed at putting NetApp's network attached storage (NAS) hardware in front of the partner's products - Cisco's MDS 9500 switches and HDS's Lightning and Thunder families of disk-based storage arrays - according to the reports.

Both Cisco and HDS are attempting to unseat heavyweights in their respective sub-sectors of the storage industry. Cisco is trying to enter the storage networking sector to battle Brocade, McData and Inrange Technologies, while HDS is trying to knock off the popularity of EMC's Celerra and Symmetrix storage area network products.

The Cisco deal would involve co-development of a NAS "blade" server to integrate with the 9500 switch, according to the reports. The combined hardware would allegedly incorporate many features found currently in storage arrays.

The HDS rumour gained credence earlier in the week when it was repeated in a report by analyst firm Merrill Lynch. Steve Milunovich was quoted as saying in the report: "A partnership between HDS and NetApp may be considered. If the financials are reasonable, this should give NetApp some extra punch at the high end and could remove a competitor at the same time."

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