Sun T3 system to push down storage costs
Published: 27 Feb 2001 08:42 GMT
Sun Microsystems has introduced a high-end collection of storage products, an important measure in catching up to rivals such as EMC.
On Monday, Sun began selling its T3 storage system along with a switch that allows the use of the Fibre Channel standard for building special-purpose networks for handling storage data. These storage area networks (SANs) are powerful but notoriously complicated and expensive.
One of the big problems with SANs is getting different components -- disk storage systems, tape storage systems, switches and network cards -- to work together.
Accordingly, the SAN products from companies such as EMC, Dell Computer, Compaq Computer, Hewlett-Packard and IBM usually assemble several of these products so customers will be ensured they work together.
Sun, while growing to dominate the server market, has struggled with high-end storage products. Among its more notable flops was the cancelled A7000 storage system.
Sun had offered SAN products before, but only as part of customized services rather than a standard configuration.
As part of its offering, Sun is selling its StorEdge network FC switch, which is actually a Sun-branded switch from QLogic. In addition, the Sun's SAN product uses QLogic's host bus adapters, the plug-in cards that connect a server to a SAN.
Sun argues that its product will push down SAN prices, but its equipment still doesn't come cheap. For a SAN equipped with 327GB of storage space, the price tag is $97,700 (£67,500), and a 5.2 terabyte configuration costs $481,900 (£333,000).
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