Maranti Debuts Intelligent SAN Switches

It took Maranti Networks Inc. awhile, but its long-promised intelligent storage area network switches have finally arrived.

Originally pegged for delivery more than a year ago, the San Jose, Calif., vendors flagship CoreSTOR line debuted this week with 16- and 128-port switches along with associated software and services all aimed at enterprises looking to prioritize storage access while wrestling with complex, multivendor storage setups.

The CoreSTOR 2000 and CoreSTOR 3000 both boast port-based processing, which gives the units their speed (up to 6 million virtual IOPS in the 3000 model), and reduces data bottlenecks, according to officials. The entire platform, which supports Fibre Channel and iSCSI, brings together the patented, in-line/cut-through processing with management and quality of service tools available from a centralized console, officials added. The idea is to offer a system that allows for the intelligent routing of storage data based on individual applications. Users can dedicate ports and tune service levels to specific applications, leaving more room for larger, mission-critical jobs, they said.

In addition to the hardware, which connects to the servers and the SAN, the CoreSTOR series comes with CoreSTOR Storage Services, a software package for administering network-based storage services such as mirroring, replication and volume copy. The platform also includes STORIAN Manager, Marantis centralized management interface.

The platform is available now, and pricing depends on system size and complexity.