Sun to Resell Nortel Optical Routers

Move will allow Sun to achieve real-time failover in remote storage-area networks.

To achieve real-time failover in remote storage-area networks, Sun Microsystems Inc. will resell and support optical routers from Nortel Networks Corp.

Sun, of Santa Clara, Calif., has finished six months of qualifying its StorEdge 3900, 6900, and 9900 storage systems, and its Sun Fire 15K server, with Nortels Optera Metro 5200 dense wave-division multiplexer switch, Enis Konuk, director of global storage for Sun Professional Services, said on Tuesday at the Storage Networking World show, in Orlando, Fla.

Other storage vendors already endorse such equipment from Nortel and its competitors, but as a reseller, "its one throat to choke, and ensuring that everything is provided to the customer at the right time," Konuk said.

Suns price range for the Optera 5200 routers will be $175,000 to $400,000, plus services costs, he said. Sun will qualify other vendors storage products, probably starting with EMC Corp.s high-end Symmetrix array, on a case-by-case basis, Konuk said. Customers are entering beta testing now and some will be deployed in about six months, he said.

Today the switches are qualified for up to 200 kilometers. By late this year or early in 2003, up to 400 kilometers will be qualified, without using repeaters, he said. Nortels switches were selected because the two companies already are partners and because Nortel, of Brampton, Ontario, has better light channel separation technology than its rivals, said Chris Wood, network storage director for field technical support for Sun.

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