'Virtualization helps manage your SAN better'

In Delhi to address a seminar on storage virtualization, Tom Clark, director,
Solutions and Technologies, McData, talked to Jasmine Kaur of Dataquest about
the movement of the current DC to a scalable, flexible, responsive distribution
of functionality in the underlying storage infrastructure.

How does the concept of virtualization help enterprises enhance the value
of their storage area networks?

According to a statistic, for every $1 spent on storage infrastructure, $7
is spent as operational cost. Virtualizing the entire storage system helps the
applications work on an uncomplicated logical level rather than the
physical-storage level. The underlying physical storage may then be changed
whenever required, typically for array replacement, information lifecycle
management, etc; without impacting the applications utilizing that storage.

How will the VSM act as a value added service in data centers?

Tom Clark

VSM stands for the 'virtualization services module', which connects to a
fiber channel solution, the Director, and is then made available to the entire
fabric as a virtualization service. It is a value added service in the Data
Center (DC) environment and connects to the metadata SAN. It allows some sort of
intelligence in the SAN to implement company policies and is capable of
correcting itself when there is any failure or disruption at the physical level.
It also allows DC managers to work seamlessly despite different vendor products.

When will VSM be available in India?

The time frame of VSM's release depends on EMC, which is the first OEM
with which it will be introduced market. The release may be somewhere near
February 2006. Larger companies are migrating to higher-end SAN solutions, where
we are shipping more Directors. The Intrepid 10000 Director is installed in
8,000 DCs around the world. Another solution, the Sphereon, is aggressively
priced for the SMB space and departmental applications. There are also products
for mid-tier companies, which are focused on disaster recovery. While McData
products have been traditionally sold through our partners OEMs like Hitachi,
HP, and IBM we are also planning on direct-level reselling.