Cisco to sell data-storage equipment from EMC
Cisco Systems Inc., the leading maker of data networking gear, is going into the data-storage business, with a major assist from storage vendor EMC Corp. of Hopkinton.
The two companies said yesterday that Cisco would begin selling some EMC network storage products under the Cisco brand name, as part of Cisco's plan to help companies manage the data stored in branch offices around the world.
"We think that there's probably north of a million and a half branch offices in the US alone," said Tom Joyce, senior director of platform marketing at EMC. George Kurian, vice president and general manager of the data caching services business unit at Cisco, said the US market for the new products could be as large as $6 billion.
EMC and Cisco have worked together for years on data storage networking standards. Since 2003, EMC has sold Cisco data storage switches under EMC's Connectrix brand name. Now, Cisco will sell EMC's NS series of storage devices under the Cisco name. The NS system includes a server for managing stored data, and a large array of hard drives for data storage.
Tony Prigmore, senior analyst for the Enterprise Strategy Group in Milford, said the deal reflects EMC's strategy of partnering with other companies to expand into new markets. Prigmore cited EMC's successful alliance with Dell Inc., which makes and resells EMC data storage devices under the Dell/EMC name. EMC was once known primarily for its high-end multimillion-dollar storage systems, but the Dell alliance opened a new market for EMC among small- and medium-size businesses.
Prigmore said that the EMC-Cisco partnership could have a similar impact, because the two companies are taking the lead in addressing a nagging problem in corporate data management. "You're going to see the other vendors scramble to follow behind," Prigmore said.
Cisco will include the EMC technology as part of a system to help companies centralize the management of information presently stored at branch offices. "More than 50 percent of companies' typical data is located outside the data center in corporate branches," said Joyce. These offices, with anywhere from five to 150 workers, generally don't have professional data management employees.
That means vital information at each office is often unavailable to others in the company. In addition, it's difficult to make regular backup copies of the information, because the standard network data protocols are designed for local-area networks. Simply opening a file stored elsewhere on the network requires exchanging hundreds of signaling messages, before the file is actually sent. That's no problem when the network resides in one building. But when it spans thousands of miles, these signaling messages make the process "extraordinarily slow," said Cisco's Kurian. "You see this hourglass where the thing is basically thinking."
Cisco plans to address the problem with File Engine, a product that uses a new high-speed protocol to enable faster data exchanges between headquarters and branch offices. Kurian said that the new protocol eliminates about 93 percent of the signaling messages needed to send a file, so data transfer is much faster.
Next, Cisco will sell its clients the EMC storage system, which will store all of the data currently held at the company branches. Workers at the branch offices will have easy access to the information through Cisco's File Engine, while the company's computer network managers will be able to properly back up and archive vital files.
Mike Karp, senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associates in Portsmouth, N.H., said a number of storage firms have launched their own products to address this market, but the size and reputation of EMC and Cisco should give them a major advantage. "Because these two guys are involved," said Karp, "there's a lot of legitimacy given to what is, in many regards, still a fairly new technology."
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.
