Storage > SANEssentials

Since the emergence of Fibre Channel SANs in the late 1990s, enterprise IT managers have maintained two sets of networks, one for storage I/O traffic and the other for data network traffic. But system consolidation and SAN expansion efforts are driving the need for a unified fabric where multiple traffic types -- network, storage and clustering -- are all carried over a single network infrastructure.

Hitachi Data Systems has added three new models to its Adaptable Modular Storage (AMS) range, introducing support for SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) disks and a new dynamic load-balancing system with two active controllers.

With many organizations scrambling to meet exploding demand for storage capacity without constantly expanding their IT staffs, Sun Microsystems continues to push open-source software as a solution, along with a new series of storage arrays and a hybrid server-storage platform.

The growing flood of data that enterprises create and consume is doing more than giving rise to new storage technologies. It's also changing who is responsible for storage within IT departments.

Cisco Systems announced the Nexus 5000 series of server access switches this week for use in data centers to consolidate storage, networking and virtualization functions.