SAN Valley Verifies Interoperability with Compaq, Brocade

SAN Valley Systems has successfully completed interoperability testing of its SAN Valley SL1000 IP-SAN Gateway with Compaq’sSANworks Enterprise Storage Management suite of products in a Brocade storage area network (SAN) environment.

The companies said this achievement paves the way for Compaq and channel partners to market a complete Fibre Channel over Internet Protocol (FCIP) standards-based solution for remote storage applications. In addition, enterprise customers can now use FCIP-based technolgoy to seek to connect SANs and deploy applications such as SANworks Data Replication Manager (DRM) within a Compaq or Brocade fabric environment.

“SAN extension is an increasing requirement. This alliance underscores the importance of IP-storage connectivity solutions and shows that IP is gaining appeal as an interconnect,” said Robert Gray of IDC. “Gaining this kind of traction with the largest providers of open systems storage and SAN infrastructure solutions is an important step for SAN Valley and shows the momentum they’re building.”

The companies said an IP-based storage connectivity solution allows SAN customers to extend the reach of their Fibre Channel SANs over extended distances while increasing flexibility in deployment scenarios for applications such as data replication. Additionally, the prevalence of IP-based services allows end users to leverage existing security mechanisms and to benefit from the competitive pricing of managed IP bandwidth services.

Recently, SAN Valley was one of the first companies to receive DRM interoperability qualification from Compaq. Compaq said the SANworks program is for vendors seeking interoperability, high performance and quality assurance when connecting disparate SANs over MAN and WAN distances.

In additon, SAN Valley said the SL1000, when combined with Brocade SAN infrastructure, delivers wire-speed performance, traffic shaping and flow control features that prevent bottlenecks associated with distance, lost data and high latency. Thus, the companies claim, a combined solution of Brocade-Compaq-SAN Valley can enhance workforce productivity by allowing more network uptime with maximized throughput while reducing total cost of ownership.