Features - Enterprise Data Insights:

HOT TIP OR HOT AIR? HITACHI TEAMS WITH InterSAN
By Simon Robinson for the451.com

InterSAN -– one of an emerging breed of storage area management software startups –- has secured its first significant relationship with a tier-one storage vendor after announcing that Hitachi Data Systems will be reselling its Pathline storage provisioning software both directly through its own sales force as well as via its reseller channel. The move is among the most significant in InterSAN's short life, since it represents a major endorsement of its technology and business strategy from an established storage giant.

The message

Storage area management startup InterSAN has announced that Hitachi Data Systems will be selling its Pathline storage provisioning software through its direct and indirect sales channels, effective immediately in North America. It's InterSAN's most significant sales partner win to date.

Competitive landscape

InterSAN claims to be the first company to offer "application aware" storage management software, but other storage vendors are now using the term, including EMC, Veritas and BMC, TrueSAN and CreekPath. InterSAN will be increasingly competitive with the likes of DataCore and FalconStor as it develops more dynamic storage management capabilities.

The451 assessment

If its alliance with HDS really is based on something more substantial than a press release and sound bites -– and there is evidence that this is the case –- then InterSAN could have secured the major sales channel that it has lacked so far. However, the question remains whether HDS sees InterSAN as a long-term partner or as an interim offering until it irons out its own broader software strategy.

Context

Scotts Valley, California-based InterSAN was founded in January of 2000, and has raised $28m to date in three rounds of funding, the most recent being a $17.8m round led by WorldView Technology Partners in May. It has set up partnerships with storage vendors such as EMC and LSI, and networking infrastructure firms such as Inrange, JNI, Brocade and Emulex. Its focus has been application-level management, rather than the usual device-level management tools.

The company also had existing ties to HDS. In July 2001, it became part of the HDS TrueNorth development program and also wrote to the HDS HiCommand storage management APIs to integrate with its Freedom storage arrays.

Partners

Under the new agreement, HDS will offer Pathline to its customers through its 800-strong direct sales force and indirect sales channel, which currently includes about 200 systems integrators and VARs. North American customers will be targeted immediately, with an additional focus on Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America starting in January 2003. InterSAN has also commenced talks with HDS parent Hitachi with a view to extending the deal to the Japanese market.

Marketing-oriented partnerships between startups and well-established players -– based on a press release and plenty of hot air, but precious little else –- are common in the storage industry, since they provide startups with the credibility they require to get the sales ball rolling and demonstrate that larger vendors still have their eye on the ball as far as emerging technologies are concerned.

In contrast with such agreements, though, InterSAN claims its deal with HDS is worth much more than the paper it is written on. As evidence, InterSAN is certifying HDS as part of its Professional Services Partner Program so HDS can offer a wide range of consulting, implementation and training services to Pathline customers. As part of this, HDS will offer front-line telephone support for joint customers.

So what does HDS get out of the deal? Through integration with the HiCommand Device Manager management framework, Pathline will be able to automatically provision, manage and monitor Hitachi's high-end and midrange Freedom storage arrays. InterSAN argues that as well as improving application availability and storage utilization and reducing staffing costs, it also provides HDS with the ability to coexist more effectively in multivendor storage environments. In short, it is providing HDS with the tools it needs to more effectively compete with improving management capabilities from key rivals such as EMC.

However, the fly in the ointment that could hold back InterSAN's new relationship is the future direction of HDS's own storage management strategy. In June, Hitachi splashed out $20m to buy Comstock, a secretive company that also develops 'storage area management' software. Hitachi is already merging Comstock's volume management, device discovery and policy management software with its own JP1/HiCommand systems management framework, although its specific plans have so far been rather vague. InterSAN concedes that there is some overlap, although it maintains that Pathline will add value as a snap-in component of HDS's TrueNorth strategy. We would be concerned that rather than being a strategic partner, HDS views InterSAN as an interim offering that will persist only until it gets its own house in order.

Technology

InterSAN touts Pathline as the first "application aware" storage management software. Pathline is a storage provisioning tool that uses predefined policies to automatically configure and implement the provisioning process to "choose the best data path" from the application itself, down through the server and into the network and storage array.

This is quicker than manual or wizard-driven provisioning tools that walk administrators through every stage of the configuration process, such as zoning, LUN mapping and volume management. Additionally, InterSAN argues that its patented Virtual Private DataPath technology is a more effective way of managing storage, since it can be used to design a policy to address specific goals, such as maximizing application availability while masking the complexity of the SAN infrastructure. On top of this framework, InterSAN provides a variety of SLA management, monitoring and reporting capabilities, which it says can inform users when an application may be at risk of failure due to lack of storage or a problem in the network.

In tune with most other storage management vendors, InterSAN will turn its attention to providing more proactive, rather than reactive, management capabilities, with a focus on dynamic storage provisioning. It currently "provides input" to dynamic storage provisioning and forecasting tools from the likes of FalconStor or DataCore, which are designed to automatically assign storage based on anticipated changes to the application infrastructure. However, the company also says that it plans to offer services "of a more dynamic nature" itself during 2003.

Competition

InterSAN competitors come in a wide variety of flavors, and differentiation from the crowd is perhaps one of the greatest difficulties for storage startups. EMC, Veritas and BMC, as well as startups AppIQ, TrueSAN and CreekPath, are all selling a similar story. InterSAN says its focus on automatic provisioning has been the main sales catalyst so far, since it offers compelling advantages over alternative approaches.

Other vendors offering 'cook-book,' wizard-driven methods of storage provisioning only address part of the problem, InterSAN claims. With tools offered by Tivoli Storage Manager and Veritas SANPoint Control, administrators still have to walk through the configuration process and still require detailed knowledge about the SAN infrastructure, such as which server owns a volume or the difference between zoning a Brocade switch versus a McData switch.