Finisar Corp. is upgrading its storage testing tool to let it evaluate multiple network segments simultaneously.
SAN QoS 2.0 is a half-rack system with new features for alarms and thresholds, plus the logging of physical layer events. The product is for Windows systems; support for Solaris will come in November, said Bob Otis, vice president of engineering at the Sunnyvale, Calif., company.
The features use probes that can be anywhere in a storage fabric, Otis said. Essentially, that allows SAN QoS 2.0 to work across a WAN and to use policies with live traffic.
“It basically allows you to collect data on a link, and it allows you to connect statistical data,” Otis said.
Bob Comer, a capacity planner at Verizon Communications Inc., used SAN QoS 1.0 to trouble-shoot problems with his 25-terabyte storage area network. The network has EMC Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. storage attached to servers from Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM and Sun Microsystems Inc.
“We had a connectivity problem,” said Comer, in Irvine, Texas. “We were trying to determine why when we added storage to a host, the storage could not see it.”
That was about a year ago. Today, “we use it periodically when were experiencing performance problems,” he said.
Comer said he likes Finisars plans for SAN QoS 2.0. For example, Verizon wants to manage multiple network segments through one console. “Im not at the data center, so for me to switch, I have to drive 7 miles to switch ports,” he said.
However, the product could be improved in several areas, Comer said. A key enhancement would be to have a wrap-around trace feature that doesnt require the manual switching of segments and an easier way to determine which disk the system is examining. The current way is too cryptic, Comer said.
SAN QoS 2.0 will be available Oct. 12, starting at $9,500 with one probe and $9,500 for the portal software, which can attach to 19 probes. Traffic viewing software costs $995 per license. A portable version, built on a laptop computer, costs $13,500, with the portal and viewing software included.