The agreement adds Cisco to StorageTek's growing list of partners, including Brocade Communications Systems Inc. and McData Corp.

Under the terms of the deal, StorageTek of Louisville, Colo., will resell Cisco's MDS 9000 family of multilayer intelligent directors and fabric switches, as well as related SMARTnet services and support.

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The move reflects StorageTek's focus on advancing its ILM strategy. By adding Cisco products, which are an important force in the SAN (storage area network) market, Cisco will help StorageTek provide robust SAN consolidation solutions to its customers that reduce the complexities of their SANs and improve total cost of ownership, said Mike Tomky, StorageTek's product marketing manager for ILM-SAN solutions.

The move also helps further StorageTek's ILM vision, which will continue to evolve and incorporate network-hosted applications for virtualization that will reside in hardware from Cisco and StorageTek's other SAN partners, Tomky added.

"The great numbers of applications that fall under the 'virtualization' umbrella are the cornerstone to the ILM vision enabling classification, management and movement of customers' data," he said.

While many of these applications run very well in arrays or on appliances, others are better suited and more effective when they reside in the network, he said. Partnering with vendors such as Cisco that have a strong roadmap for network-hosted applications will speed delivery of StorageTek's ILM vision to its customers, he said.

Read the full story on eWEEK.com: StorageTek Hones ILM Strategy with Cisco Deal