Midrange Stuff, OS/400 Edition

Crossroads Systems last week announced a new storage router that it says opens the door to SAN, or storage area network, interoperability for a whole generation of older AS/400s that previously had no off-the-shelf options for plugging into SANs. The new router, called ServerAttach, basically converts the SCSI storage protocol used by OS/400 servers to Fibre Channel, the de facto standard for SANs, and therefore allows OS/400 servers to share resources with storage devices that use Fibre Channel.

Crossroads is launching two ServerAttach boxes early next month that will have built-in support for OS/400's storage intricacies ("quirks," to Crossroads) in its firmware. The SA-20 will have two SCSI input ports and one Fibre Channel output port, while the SA-40 will feature four SCSI ports and two Fibre Channel ports. The SA-20 will retail for about $15,000 and the SA-40 for about $28,000.

Crossroads pricing is comparable to what IBM is asking OS/400 shops to pay for its feature 2766 Fibre Channel host bus adapter, manufactured by Emulex. The key difference to keep in mind is that the host bus adapters are only compatible with newer iSeries boxes, such as the 8XX series, running the latest version of OS/400; whereas the ServerAttach devices will support a wider segment of the marketplace, including vintage AS/400 model 500s and 600s, Crossroads said.

"The Fibre Channel-enabled boxes from IBM--the 8XX series--they're very expensive boxes," said Lisa Watts, a Crossroads business alliance manager. "The segment of the market we're targeting are those servers that don't have those capabilities today."

Crossroads sees OS/400 shops using the SA-20 and the SA-40 to eliminate dependency on tape drives and tape libraries by allowing them to run nightly backups on the SANs. By providing SAN connections for up to four servers (with the SA-40), Crossroads said, its device provides an advantage over installing host bus adapters on each server, and making the corresponding change to the servers' kernels.

Crossroads is working with Notablity Solutions, a United Kingdom reseller and provider of OS/400 systems management software, to do the final validation work for the platform before general availability next month. Watts said that Crossroads will be targeting its certifications for OS/400 V4R5 and V5R1, although it is open to working with customers for other releases on an as-needed basis. There are about 20 beta testers for the ServerAttach boxes, three or four of whom are using them with OS/400 servers. The company also has plans to support other platforms with its ServerAttach boxes, including the pSeries, Hewlett-Packard HP 3000 and HP 9000 servers, computers from Silicon Graphics and Ahmdal, and those running older versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

The move to develop ServerAttach marks quite a change in strategy for Crossroads Systems, a fairly young Austin, Texas, company that until now has concentrated on research (it has 13 patents and 87 pending) and developing routers that allow SCSI tape libraries to work in Fibre Channel-based SANs. Crossroads claims to own 80 percent of the market for such devices, and it has established OEM relationships with some of the biggest names in storage, including StorageTek, Hewlett-Packard, and Compaq (before its merger with HP).

However, the lead that Crossroads enjoyed in its market is evaporating, as its OEM partners build native Fibre Channel support into their tape libraries or acquire competitors of Crossroads that can provide that for them. The move to develop the ServerAttach boxes and tackle new markets, such as the OS/400 market, can be attributed to competitive pressures.

"For us, this is a big change," said Frank Sowin, director of business development and product marketing for Crossroads. "We're trying to use our technology in another way, turn it around and use it in another configuration. It's an evolutionary step for us."

Besides the platform-specific firmware, the new ServerAttach boxes are not significantly different from Crossroads' existing line of routers for tape. Those routers were used to plug otherwise incompatible SCSI tape libraries into SANs, to get more use out of them before their useful life ended. What Crossroads has done with the ServerAttach boxes is to basically turn those devices around, so that they're facilitating data flow from an otherwise incompatible server into a SAN, instead of widening storage options once the data has arrived in the SAN.

Crossroads plans to sell the ServerAttach devices through a reseller network. The company is working with interested IBM business partners and premier resellers, and it has commenced an aggressive e-mail marketing campaign to drum up interest. The company plans to soon post an OS/400-ServerAttach compatibility matrix on its Web site, at www.crossroads.com.