Compaq Computer Corp. on Tuesday announced its first partnership with a metropolitan area network provider, GiantLoop Networks Inc.
The partnership with the Waltham, Mass., company is part of Compaqs larger strategy to create full Internet protocol global storage networks within the next few years.
GiantLoop currently services New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Dallas, Detroit, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Phoenix and London.
Future partners, which will also enable data cloning, snapshots, remote backups and mirroring, will be announced “in the not-too-distant future,” said Richard Avis, director of storage solutions for Compaqs Enterprise Storage Group, of Shrewsbury, Mass.
The initial replication services are available immediately, he said.
The news is just one prong in Compaqs long-term storage vision. Beyond data replication networks, Compaq will build IP networks to extend Fibre Channel connections across MANs next year, hybrid versions of that in 2003 and full-IP global storage networks in 2004, ESG Vice President and General Manager Mark Lewis said this summer.
Testing the networks is the crucial step in rolling them out, GiantLoop spokesman Jon Oltsik said. Data replication was never to be a network-centric feature, so testing needs to be done in distance sensitivity and latency, he said.