Connectors For Data Storage - Technology & Market

Abstract

The Market

The Storage Market continues to heat up in terms of activity. IBM just announced a major new initiative that seeks to establish them as the number 1 supplier of external storage resources. IBM is now third with the number one position currently held by EMC with HP in the number two slot. IBMs latest products cut the price of storage by as much as half. IBM is also driving down the size of the units as well.

Storage Needs Grow

The market for storage continues to expand in the enterprise because so much of the mission critical data is stored electronically; backups are essential to organizations of any size. Not only is there a requirement to back up information onto corporate servers; but also onto a remote, off site location in case of fire or other disaster.

Laptops are a source of concern and another area of need for back up, as they are subject to loss or theft. Massive amounts of data on laptops are not backed up. One would assume start-ups and small businesses would be most at risk but large companies have experienced similar disruptions.

New Technologies Offer Alternatives

Fibre Channel based SANs (Storage Area Networks) were once projected to permeate the storage landscapes of all businesses; but, because of cost, have remained a technology mostly relegated to large companies. The emergence of iSCSI, a SAN technology using low cost Ethernet components, holds the possibility of delivering on the promise of SANs for small and midsize companies in the future. The ramification of the shift to iSCSI is that the unique I/O connectors for FC will give way to the commodity Ethernet connectors. Many analysts and observers are saying that most large companies now have SANs in place and that the market for growth in SANs is with the SMB. The large storage OEMs like EMC and HP are each fielding low cost storage platforms to address the SMB market, spurred along by Dells entry into that space.

The emergence of Serial ATA (the I/O connecting technology for low cost PC drives) promises to have impact on the enterprise in the coming years, with most analysts showing all growth going to that technology. Of course, for the storage on the PC, SATA has already begun to capture that market and will have done so by 2007.