Demartek Publishes Article on Storage Networking Alternatives

October 2011

All the old standards — FC, iSCSI and NAS — are still going strong, but FCoE and virtualized I/O are waiting in the wings to help remake our storage networks.

Storage networking rarely gets much attention, and it’s frequently overshadowed by the server and storage gear it links together. But there’s renewed interest in storage networking as new or enhanced technologies begin to show up in our data centers. Sure, there’s lots to talk about with new server technologies, virtualization, operating systems and apps, but all those technologies ultimately require a place to store their data, so they rely on storage networking technologies to handle the task.

There’s a wide variety of storage networking technologies, with something to fit every budget and storage requirement. Storage networking technologies continue to advance to meet today’s growing requirements and to anticipate future needs. Some of these techs are proven and being deployed now or in the near-term. Others are relatively new or not yet very well understood, so their future isn’t as clear.

After checking research firm IDC’s data tracking storage shipments by host interface type, we find that DAS, FC storage, iSCSI storage and NAS are each multibillion dollar businesses and none of them is going away anytime soon.

The complete article is available in the October 2011 edition of Storage Magazine.