Emulex on March 13 unveiled its new line of multi-protocol iSCSI and Fibre Channel over IP storage router products targeted for release by mid-2006 by OEMs, the Emulex Storage Router Models 725 and 735, respectively.
The new storage networking gear is aimed at helping enterprise customers simplify the handling of multi-protocol translation and connectivity options for FC-based SANs (storage area networks).
Built to provide iSCSI to FC connectivity, the Emulex Storage Router Model 725 is aimed at organizations becoming too departmental or that feature expanding workgroups with growing storage needs despite low performance applications.
The Emulex 725 box can provide storage consolidation by migrating servers from a DAS (direct attached storage) model and can enable cheaper-cost iSCSI with its scalability benefits within entry-level Ethernet servers directly back to a shared storage FC SAN architecture, said Al Gamarra, senior product marketing manger for Costa Mesa, Calif.-based Emulex.
While a wide range of native iSCSI initiators are available for Microsoft Windows, Linux and Sun Solaris platforms and have the ability to perform block level traffic, Gamarra said the initiators lack a cost-effective means to achieve connectivity back to an FC SAN.
The Model 725 iSCSI router offers 200K IOPs and 200M bps bandwidth per port in a 1-U half-rack form factor.
Capable of being administered as part of a clustering environment, the new router does not require any type of additional host or server software.
The Emulex Storage Router 735 interconnects FC SANs which have already been deployed.
Architected with SMBs (small to midsize businesses) in mind, the hardware pushes data connectivity between multiple sites to ease disaster recovery and management centralization operations.
The Model 735 router provides long-range connectivity using the FCIP protocol to bridge SANs over metro and WAN distances.
In turn, replication, mirroring and backup applications can be delivered to remote facilities and business locations.