You know what Cisco needs? A server SAN strategy

Cisco has no SAN/filer legacy to escape from and, in a storage world where the hyper-converged server/storage/networking system is only getting trendier, it has a major opportunity on its hands. Consider the mainstream storage vendors – Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, HDS, HP, IBM and NetApp – their storage product line heartland is the …

[joejones]

Off topic - misuse of the acronym SAN

Off topic - but I am now officially blaming the media for the misuse of the term SAN - this means you El Reg!

I am exhausted with this battle in the lexicon of IT - and clearly I have lost it.

Why have destroyed the meaning of the acronym SAN? What does SAN stand for?

Storage

Area

Network

A server with disks attached to it is not a SAN, its a server with disks that can be shared out - such a nas/iscsi/FC/FCOE shared storage device or array. It is not a network.

Somehow we have turned what was previously called a Storage Array into a Network. I am not entirely sure how this happened. I think it was some lazy marketing person from Dell who wanted to say SAN a lot because they had no idea what they were talking about.

Now we have turn this acronym into a catch-all for anything storage related that isn't DAS (direct attached storage), an acronym that's name has not been changed.

Please, PLEASE, PLEASE for the love of the universe, will you journalists at the Reg stop using the word SAN in this way!

Call Networked Attached Storage a NAS!

Call a Storage Array a Storage Array!

If you want to refer to an entire set of Network/Fibre Switches and Storage devices attached to it a SAN, that would be G@#$#@$d Darn FU#@$#@ING acceptable.

Thanks,

[Roland6]

Re: Off topic - misuse of the acronym SAN

Perhaps we need some versioning of acronyms as per MRP/MRP II/MRP III and ERP/ERP II

Thus:

SAN - Storage Area Network

SAN II - Storage Array Network - ie. a network of storage array's

[marcfarley]

Why not Maxta?

Remember when Cisco had a deal with Brocade? That's how I view their Simplivity relationship. BTW, I'm surprised you didn't mention Maxta - unless you did - and my speed reading missed it. Swooping up a small all-software company would be a lot less messy, even though Cisco would then have to earn their market share.

[M. B.]

Having...

...an agreement with Simplivity allows them the flexibility to lead with that option when it is the strongest option available without stepping on the toes of partners like the EMC federation, NetApp, and Nimble. Outright buying them only creates a quagmire of corporate bullshit between existing partners which I am sure they would rather like to avoid until they have a more accurate indication of how this agreement will pay off.

It's also worth noting that Cisco is an Inktank customer, running Ceph on UCS nodes for OpenStack storage. If they really wanted to make a move to shake things up and piss a lot of people off, they would buy Red Hat (who now owns Inktank), landing them an OS and hypervisor company with a scale-out disk storage offering to pair with their flash accelerators and a ton of open source know-how and resources to do pretty much whatever they want, extending the expertise into all of their existing products as well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Having...

Cisco does not have an agreement with Simplivity. They sell to simplivity as they would sell to any small business customer. Their sales reps get commission on the boxes sold to Simplivity, but their reps do not do any of the selling of Simplivity.

Either that is the fact or someone from Cisco HQ should clarify it.

[Matt Bryant]

Wrong direction.

Previous strategic planning by CISCO has shown they have a masochistic bent for diving into markets that have already gone past mature. Faced with the cry of "diversify" from Wall Street, they decided to try and invade the x64 market just as the white boxers were really getting a good head of steam on. If it wasn't already a bad enough idea, it was already clear a company with much more insight into the market - IBM - was looking to leave due to the poor margins and competitive pressure. No, CISCO won't be leading the way into any market, they will be looking for another 'challenge', such as going into the mobile phone market.

[RonWheeler]

Cisco

trying to make every product an over-complicated networking endpoint..

[aregross]

Re: Cisco

Bingo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so sure

I agree with the x64 commodity comment. Getting into server SAN would be a lot like getting into PCs. No margin and low cost wins. The major server SAN shops, Google, el al, are white box users. The average shop would probably prefer shared SAN because it is easier to manage than clustering a bunch of x86 servers together. If they are going server SAN, they will buy the cloud service from Google, Amazon, etc and let them figure it out.

If server SAN is really the way the storage industry is going, which it might be, then storage is a great business not to be in... unless you are selling software.

[Cloud 9]

Yes I am sure ..

Absolutely. A few UCS C3160s loaded with Atlantis UXS could be a sexy proposition for service providers.

[tomuk5]

is the correspondent aware that PCIe flash cards are already options for the cisco kit in its M3 form, prior to the M4 refresh.

also that in terms of interconnect, they have unified fabric, so lots of 10gig/40gig ethernet and FC in the backplane for the B-series and a similar story for the C-series.

the C24 and C240 are also ideally suited to "lots of dense disk" in a 2U format.

and in terms of vSAN software, Vmware can be purchased and loaded at build time, or bought afterwards for roll your own vSAN. its not as sexy as the new startups but its still early days and there are too many horses to back at this stage. the hardware is ready, its just time to sit back and let the software storage companies battle it out and a winner emerge.