EMC Corp. will ship storage area networking switches from Cisco Systems Inc. by the end of this quarter, officials said Tuesday.
Cisco announced its entry into the market last summer, with the intention to compete against incumbent players Brocade Communications Systems Inc. and McData Corp. by giving customers a single supplier for data and storage networking infrastructure.
EMC joins IBM and Hitachi, which have already qualified the Cisco product family, called Multilayer DataCenter Switch 9000. The switches will be competitively priced, Cisco officials and their growing list of resellers have said, declining to state details.
EMC will also develop network-resident storage management software for Cisco switches, such as data mobility and path optimization, officials at the Hopkinton, Mass. companys annual EMC Technology Summit in Las Vegas said. EMC and other storage vendors are developing software for San Jose, Calif.s Brocade as well.
McData has its own software roadmap, officials of the Broomfield, Colo. company told eWEEK recently.
EMC expects to sell storage-over-IP connections through Cisco before it offers such technology from Brocade or McData, officials said.
Cisco will provide an update on its switch traction next week, including certification news from Hewlett-Packard Co., officials of both companies said today.
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