An open storage stack? I like the sound of that

This week Sun Microsystems stepped up to the commodity storage plate and said it will begin offering multi-terabyte systems running its open source storage stack, from the operating system to the management software.

While the first products to sport the new software stack are Sun's 7000 series, the company is quietly optimistic about the wider implications for the storage industry.

Turn the clock back a few years and all the talk at Sun was about OpenSolaris and how revolutionary the concept of running a Unix operating system on non-Sun servers, a market now owned by Linux.

Since then, probably to Sun's surprise, Sun has made more revenue in OpenSolaris support contracts than it did when it was tied to - albeit pricey - Sun hardware.

What's that got to do with storage? Well, the interesting thing about Sun's open storage push is, in theory, it will also run on non-Sun kit because it's based on x64 processor servers running OpenSolaris.

So the same scenario repeats itself - customers interested in an "enterprise" storage system on commodity hardware can deploy it as much as they like, including on existing server infrastructure, and then pay real money to Sun for support.

There's even an OpenSolaris storage server tutorial on Sun's developer Web site.

Is Sun interested? It should be.

I caught up with Sun's local chief technologist Angus McDonald to discuss the prospect and he was somewhat coy, but I think is nevertheless open to the idea.

"We could support third-party installations, but we don't have published a position yet," he said.

I met Angus about six years ago and have interviewed him numerous times so believe me when I say he's interested.

Expect to see Sun get used to that idea very quickly. At least if it wants to up its storage revenues.

If it worked for OpenSolaris it can work for Open Storage. And if it manages to break the ridiculously expensive mid-tier storage market from its proprietary clutches even better.

Open Storage - good riddance to bad storage!