InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

Switches let IT managers create an infrastructure over long distances that connects servers to storage systems based on application needs, and provide users with access to data from almost any source. "We don't yet have the panacea to get to storage from anywhere in the galaxy," says Carla Kennedy, VP of marketing for Ancor, "but there are steps we can take in the meantime."

A feature in Ancor's Gigworks switch called hard zoning is designed to let users cross-configure connections to expand their SANs without sacrificing performance. Jeff Allen, VP of network storage marketing for Sun, says that feature played a part in the company's decision to go with Ancor. He says customers choose SANs in part because they can pay for storage as they go rather than buy large products up front, so they need products that retain high levels of performance as capacity increases.