Sun Opens Storage to Others

In a move it said will expand customer choice, Sun said it will open its storage clustering program to accommodate outside vendors.

The company said its Sun Cluster Open Storage Program will now offer support for non-Sun storage arrays including third-party storage devices from storage heavies like EMC, IBM, and Network Appliance . The collaboration is jointly supported by the Technical Support Alliance Network (TSANet) and includes a self-certification test.

Sun said it will now certify the storage solutions for Sun Cluster in the same way that it validates its own Sun Cluster 3 technology for its Sun StorEdge lineup.

“In today’s diverse IT climate, customers want increased choice in configurations without compromising on availability and quality,” said Ann Wettersten, vice president, software systems marketing, Sun Microsystems in a statement. “With the Sun Cluster Open Storage Program, customers now enjoy a wider choice of storage arrays that seamlessly interoperate with Sun Cluster.”

The Open Storage Program is targeted at Sun resellers and OEMs, an area that Sun has been building recently with the advance of its entry-level systems and partnerships with Brocade and Hitachi. Industry estimates place Sun products at around a 10 percent of market share for storage products.

Storage and in particular Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) based storage strategies continue to remain a hot topic with major IT vendors. HP recently announced its Adaptive Enterprise related storage initiatives. Not to be outdone IBM last week updatedits latest storage strategy.

Sun’s announcement comes in advance of its NC04 Q2 product launch cycle in June in which it’s expected to unveil a variety of new network solutions.