Seems we are all thinking open systems these days. Leading the charge are big companies like Sun Microsystems. If you are not up on what open storage is all about you might want to take a look at a nice document put out by Sun: Open Storage Adoption. This paper was just put out a couple of months ago so it has some very relevant information within it.

To wet you appetite, you might be asking what exactly is open storage. Basically open storage allows storage systems to be built with an open architecture. Thourh the use of industry-standard hardware and open source software you can basically choose the best hardware and software to meet your goals.

From the paper: "For example, a customer who needs network file services can use an open storage filer built from a standard x86 server, disk drives, and OpenSolaris technology at a fraction of the cost of a proprietary NAS appliance, such as a NetApp fabric-attached storage (FAS) system"

Read more at Open Storage Adoption