Scott Tyler Shafer

In a move that shows its commitment to serving the enterprise LAN market, Alcatel SA introduced two new switches designed to carry both voice and data traffic.

Citing demonstrable cost savings and improved efficiencies, IBM Corp. on Wednesday announced it has begun offering a full set of services for migrating separate enterprise voice and data networks to a single IP-based network.

Rounding out its family of storage systems, Hitachi Data Systems Corp. on Tuesday unveiled a modular system for the midrange market that features functions borrowed from its higher-end systems.

In another sign that IP technology is beginning to find its way into the world of storage networking, McData Corp. at Comdex demonstrated a forthcoming blade that moves IP traffic at line rate from its FC (Fiber Channel)-based director-class switch.

Looking to distinguish itself from the pack, BMC Software Inc. recently announced it has added automation functions to its SRM (storage resource management) software via a partnership with Invio Software Inc.

In a move uncharacteristic for IBM Corp., the company's storage division today shared details of current research projects they hope to realize in the upcoming years.

If there is a market for application and content-aware switching, F5 Networks Inc. will be amongst the first to know. The Seattle-based company on Monday will introduce a new family of BIG-IP switches that now does what the company is calling "application traffic management." F5 is the first of the well-established Web load-balancing players, including Cisco Systems Inc., Nortel Networks Corp., and Foundry Networks Inc., to upgrade its switch family to do packet inspection and decision making at the application layer.

Attempting to address critical storage concerns, a host of companies are rolling out new security appliances that secure stored data and manage certificate-based authentication between storage devices.