EMC is announcing Tuesday that it will resell a storage switch from Cisco Systems as part of a long-anticipated partnership between the two companies.

Under the deal, the company will sell Cisco's MDS 9000 family of switches under the EMC name. The EMC-branded switch can be managed using both Cisco and EMC software, though EMC's software will have limited abilities at first. The switch should be available later this quarter, the companies said.

The partnership is not the first for either company. EMC plans to sell a rival "intelligent switch" from Brocade Communications Systems, while Cisco has already signed deals to sell its storage switch through IBM and Hewlett-Packard.

The new deal is somewhat different in that EMC will sell the Cisco switch under its own Connectrix brand, and the two companies plan to work together to promote standards for such switches. EMC also plans to develop software that can run on Cisco's switches, though it did not give a time for when that might occur.

Full Article:
CNet News