McData Corp. and Adaptec, Inc. said in a release on Tuesday they will combine forces in an attempt to provide users with a way to easily extend the connectivity and manageability of their SANs over their IP networks.
The move is expected to significantly extend the capabilities of iSCSI and Fibre Channel storage area networks (SANs).
McData, Broomfield, Colo., said it plans to integrate Milipitas, Calif.-based Adaptec's storage router accelerator (SRA) into its line of enterprise products, extending Fibre Channel SANs over IP networks. This integration will enable customers to optimize their Fibre Channel SANs by providing reliable connections over long distances, and provides a complementary convergence between Fibre Channel and iSCSI protocols.
"Customers are looking for easy ways to connect Fibre Channel SAN islands using an IP infrastructure," said Steve Duplessie, senior analyst, The Enterprise Storage Group, Milford, Mass. "This major collaboration with McDATA validates Adaptec's strength in IP for Fibre Channel extension storage, and demonstrates its ability to win in new and fast-growing markets."
Not only will Adaptec's SRA enable long distance support for Fibre Channel, it also is expected to support iSCSI-to-Fibre Channel Conversion, a company spokesperson said. As the iSCSI protocol continues to emerge as an edge router technology, this integration will afford better investment protection, by providing a high performance,
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highly reliable connection between iSCSI hosts and a customer's Fibre Channel SAN.
Customers will also be able to better leverage the benefits of their storage networks by allowing more servers to connect to their Fibre Channel SANs.
Adaptec's SRA architecture is scalable to 10Gbit and enables Fibre Channel traffic to be converted to Gigabit Ethernet traffic using FCIP or FC-to-iSCSI protocols.
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