The recent announcement that IBM and Compaq are to team up to offer storage solutions has been welcomed by distributor Tarsus Technologies. Tarsus is the sole South African distributor of Compaq StorageWorks and is also a major distributor of IBM storage products.
Andre Wollheim, product manager for Compaq at Tarsus Technologies, notes that the announcement is expected to drive recognition and demand for storage networking products.
"This agreement essentially reveals IBM`s confidence in Compaq`s SAN technology. Compaq has always used IBM disk drives, and as the MA8000 and EMA12000 uses standard Ultra2 and Ultra3 drives which include the IBM drives, nothing has changed on Compaq`s side. What has changed is that IBM has adopted Compaq`s SAN offering, which is an exciting development for both companies," he says.
In terms of the agreement, Compaq and IBM will work to ensure full interoperability of their respective storage offerings and accelerate customer acceptance of open storage networking solutions and will also sell significant products from each other`s storage portfolios. The total of investments currently planned by the companies could exceed $1 billion.
"Additionally, the companies are to work together to help create standards for open storage networking solutions such as Storage Area Networks (SANs), making storage networks more flexible and easier to deploy and manage," comments Wollheim.
Under terms of the deal, Compaq will augment its portfolio with IBM`s "Shark" Enterprise Storage Servers and select Tivoli systems management software. IBM will augment its portfolio with Compaq StorageWorks Modular Array storage systems and software, which will include IBM 10 000 RPM hard disk drives. IBM will support Compaq`s VersaStor technology for storage SAN-wide virtualisation.
"The agreement addresses the tendency for storage solution providers to develop proprietary technologies that complicate management of storage in already dispersed and heterogeneous environments," says Guy Whitcroft, managing director of Tarsus Technologies. "An evolution of common standards for SAN hardware and software is likely with the commitment of such highly regarded players as Compaq and IBM," he concludes.
Share
