4/1/2004 -- At next week's Storage Networking World tradeshow in Phoenix, Cisco and three ISV partners plan to demonstrate a new storage networking feature that Cisco is incorporating in its MDS 9000 Series SAN switches.

The feature, which Cisco calls the MDS 9000 Data Tap Service, provides a protocol-based interface between the networking giants MDS 9000 Series SAN switches and third-party storage appliances. As a result, Cisco says, these appliances can access servers and storage devices on a SAN without having to be directly in the path of the data.

Joining Cisco in the demo are Alacritus, a manufacturer of disk-based data protection solutions; Kashya, a purveyor of cost-effective business continuity solutions; and Topio, a specialist in enterprise data recoverability solutions.

In a statement, John Webster, senior analyst and founder of the Data Mobility Group, explained that "Cisco is adding a 'side door' to the switching fabric through which data can pass to storage appliances. One advantage of this approach, Webster continued, is that Users can then adapt these appliances to a variety of applications in a non-disruptive way that also preserves the attributes of the switching fabric.

Cisco claims that the benefits of deploying the Cisco MDS 9000 in combination with storage appliances will be useful in high-traffic SANs with a large number of II/O transactions between servers and their storage targets.

The networking giant plans to offer the MDS 9000 Data Tap Service on one of the line cards for the Cisco MDS 9000. Cisco says that it will be available for use on the Cisco MDS 9216, MDS 9506, and the MDS 9509 models.

In a statement, Soni Jiandani, vice president of marketing in Ciscos Internet Switching Business Unit, said that the new MDS 9000 Data Tap Service is consistent with Ciscos multi-layer vision: "It supports our multi-layer product vision for the Cisco MDS 9000 by offering our customers the utmost flexibility in storage software options that run seamlessly over a highly scalable, reliable, and intelligent SAN switch platform." -Stephen Swoyer