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SCMP Reporter

Storage Technology (StorageTek) is promoting open storage area networking (SAN) on the mainland, following recent expansion in key cities.

Brian Knott, regional director for North Asia, said the company and its partners were drawing up a strategy to educate the mainland market about the advantages of open SAN technology.

Colorado-based StorageTek, a maker of high-performance digital-storage systems, opened offices in Shanghai and Guangzhou this week. Its first office was opened in Beijing in 1998.

'There is a growing demand to learn more about open SAN on the mainland,' Mr Knott said.

'By setting up offices in China's major cities, we will be able to offer top-notch technology support and services to our strategic partners and customers.

'Our goal is to allow more corporations in China to enjoy the business efficiencies and competitive edges brought by StorageTek's solutions, which include SAN technology.'

He said industries targeted for SAN would be the same sectors that were moving to boost information-storage systems. These would include government, financial services, telecommunications and manufacturing operations.

StorageTek's partners in generating interest for open SAN include Brocade Communications Systems, Hitachi Data Systems and Veritas Software.

The companies had established an SAN centre in Hong Kong to transfer skills in SAN design, implementation, management and maintenance to local companies.

SAN is an enabling technology that allows disparate storage computing resources to be shared, enabling organisations to achieve continuous and faster access to digital data.

A typical SAN set-up consists of a communication infrastructure to link servers and storage devices, and a management system to smooth connections so all data transmission remains secure and robust.

With SANs, enterprises can support disk mirroring, back-up, archive and retrieval of archived data and the sharing of data between servers.

Cahners In-Stat Group forecast worldwide network storage market, which includes SAN systems, would reach more than US$10 billion in revenue by 2004, from almost US$2 billion last year.

International Data Corp predicted the information-storage systems market in Asia-Pacific would grow at a rate of more than 79.5 per cent as organisations' requirements swelled from gigabytes to multiple terabytes of data.

'With China's upcoming admission into the World Trade Organisation, we see huge growth potential for the storage market on the mainland,' Mr Knott said.

He said increased competition in industries would drive demand on the mainland for more efficient use of information resources, which meant organisations must install cost-effective storage networking infrastructures that were interoperable with past, present and future information-storage assets.

That was why the open SAN initiative veered away from the proprietary means of storage networking that vendors including Compaq Computer and EMC had successfully pushed on the mainland, he said.



US firm moves to jump-start open storage area networking