Ethernet Storage Guy

So this is my first entry into the blogosphere.

In the coming weeks and months, I am excited to share with others my experiences over many long years of being a network consultant, now working in the storage industry. One of the journeys I had along the way in networking, was working for Cisco Systems. We took on Nortel and Avaya for leadership in voice throughout the worlds enterprises.

In the begining of that battle Nortel claimed that IP Telephony and VoIP had it’s place in the future but only a 100 year old voice bellwether (themselves) could bring the technology to a point where a enterprise could run it’s business on it. The message was wait, it needs time.

Avaya said similar things but accepted that change was occurring and announced that thier future was VoIP. Cisco simply said from the very start, the network is the future utility for the enterprise and voice will be a very critical application which is carried upon it. That statement caused the technology world to stew. Those who were traditional voice experts, with a strong background in TDM (Time Division Multiplexing), opined that these comments were reckless and showed that Cisco did not comprehend the true importance of voice. How could voice be an application on a network? Applications failed regularly and the network supporting them wasn’t considered reliable.

As many of us know a new chapter in the history books of voice has been written and any company today that is buying a new voice system, is buying IP Telephony. TDM equipment has not went away and it in fact exists in many of today’s IP Telephony networks, it has simply been dedicated to a few “important”, yet isolated functions. IP Telephony won and Ethernet is the technology which is carrying those very important communications.

Today, I find myself at the junction of a new convergence in technology. Storage is experiencing that same fundamental shift that voice did over 10 years ago. The TDM technology of Storage is Fibre Channel and let’s start off on the right foot, it will not be eliminated by Ethernet Storage. Fibre Channel will be dedicated to a few “important”, yet isolated functions. Fibre Channel is an excellent technology which has its place. However, the industry manufactures have decided that Ethernet is were they are headed in terms of research and development. The manufactures have voted with their dollars, now comes the journey to get there.

The articles contained here are about that journey. Many technologies will emerge, some will fail others will change the architecture of data center networks forever.

I will simply provide perspective…..