NetApp is end-of-life-ing its DataFort security appliance product line, with a planned migration path to Brocade products.

Word has come to El Reg that some DataFort customers are receiving end-of-life statements with February 2011 as the termination month. NetApp CTO Jay Kidd said back in September 2008 that: "NetApp will resell the Brocade products as our next generation FC (Fibre Channel) DataFort," and that there would be an E-Series for Ethernet and an S-Series for SCSI.

So now it looks as if time is up for NetApp direct DataFort customers, but there is a migration path. A NetApp statement said:

The Fibre Channel version of DataFort went EoA in September 2010 as a result of NetApp’s close relationship with Brocade, resulting in a next-generation solution that protects our customers’ investment in the above-mentioned NetApp DataFort appliances and offers a seamless migration path.

The Brocade Encryption Switch (BES) offers better scalability, better performance and heterogeneity and can be introduced into any FC SAN fabric (Brocade or Cisco) just like a NetApp DataFort Appliance. NetApp has a comprehensive encryption and security strategy and as this evolves we provide appropriate advanced warning to our customers of the upcoming End of Availability of products.

Brocade has licensed the Decru technology, acquired when NetApp bought Decru for $272m in June 2005.

NetApp is getting out of the business of building its own security bump-in-the-wire product, and concentrating on building shared storage products at the end of the wire. ®