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Visualizing SAN Configuration Information

It's not every day that a company deploys a storage area network (SAN). Besides the up-front expense, the functional requirements are complex. SANs need to provide long-term, reliable data storage and transmission capabilities for immense amounts of information in rapidly-changing environments. That's why flawless planning up front is key to any successful SAN implementation. McDATA Corporation (Nasdaq: MCDT) is a leading provider of open storage networking solutions around the globe. The tool chosen by McDATA's Professional Services group to visualize its customers' SAN configuration data during the crucial planning and implementation phases - netViz.

A SAN is a network of storage devices and servers separate from an enterprise's LAN. The beauty of a SAN is that it allows users throughout the enterprise to transfer data without creating bottlenecks in the LAN. And because it is used only for data storage and transmission, a properly-designed SAN can provide more reliability, higher availability and require lower maintenance costs than it would if it were an integrated part of a LAN.

As an entirely separate topology, a SAN needs to be designed from the ground up to meet a particular user's requirements. According to Chris Cross, McDATA's Senior Consulting Architect, "we've found that customers don't just want to buy hardware from us, they want advice about how to architect and configure their SAN. Over the years, we've developed a lot of expertise in the area of SAN planning, design and implementation. Rather than reinvent the wheel every time a new customer comes to us, we've captured the "best practices" our SAN consultants have developed through their experience in over 200 SAN implementations. We created what we call the Enterprise SAN Methodology, a standardized and repeatable phase-activity-task approach to SAN deployment. It's essentially a package of reference materials and software tools made of custom software, step-by-step instructions, checklists, documentation, installation samples and embedded tools including Access, Excel and netViz. McDATA Enterprise SAN Methodology guides consultants through an entire SAN implementation. When a new customer comes to us, the Enterprise SAN Methodology assists in the information gathering process and supports consultants in designing a SAN solution that meets each customer's unique business requirements."The methodology is also used by McDATA's partners. Says Cross, "we have a number of partners all over the world who resell or OEM McDATA hardware and software. Our partners use the methodology to make sure they're talking to the right people, asking the right questions, and creating the best possible SAN architecture. By distributing the methodology, we're assured that our partners benefit from our expertise. Our goal is to make the process of creating a SAN architecture consistent, repeatable, and easily understood by all the members of the consultanting team. The more variables we take out of the process, the better the end product will be."

And here's where netViz comes in. During the design phase, the consultant uses the methodology tools to generate a database containing all of the information relating to the customer's SAN configuration, from hardware specifications to connectivity information. "In the old days," says Cross, "we'd hand a spreadsheet to our implementation people. They would use the data to create the SAN, but we didn't have anything to give to our customers that would demonstrate the work we'd done. So after the installation was completed, we'd go back and recreate it in Visio, then give the drawings to our customers. The ability of netViz to link directly to databases and spreadsheets has allowed us to skip a time-consuming step. Instead of recreating diagrams with a simple drawing tool, we now link the configuration database to a new netViz project. With a single mouse click, we're able to auto-create an entire set of netViz diagrams right from McDATA Enterprise SAN Methodology data. This not only helps in the implementation phase, but it generates a tangible deliverable that consultants can hand to customers. Because netViz diagrams are data-embedded, customers can instantly see the work they have engaged us to accomplish without having to pore over database tables. By linking netViz to our configuration tables, we're able to provide our customers a more complete, well-documented solution in less time. Instead of handing our customers a set of drawings created after the fact, we give them easy-to-understand diagrams generated directly from the actual SAN configuration data."

About McDATA
Formed in 1982, McDATA Corporation (Nasdaq: MCDT) provides high-performance director-class switches, related software, services and education for connecting servers and storage systems in enterprise storage area networks (SANs). Based in Broomfield, Colorado, the company employs more than 550 people. In addition to a systems integration lab, development labs and manufacturing facilities in the US, the company has a development lab in Toronto, Canada and sales offices in the US, United Kingdom, Germany and Japan.