FC Plugfest Readies 4GFC and 10GFC Products for 2005 Market Launch

FC Plugfest Readies 4GFC and 10GFC Products for 2005 Market Launch

Leading Fibre Channel Vendors Convene at UNH-IOL to Ensure Smooth Technology Transition

SAN FRANCISCO and DURHAM, N.H., Feb. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) announced today that it successfully completed its plugfest during the week of January 10 at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL). Leading Fibre Channel (FC) vendors collaborated to ensure interoperability and backward compatibility for a variety of next-generation 4 Gb/s (4GFC) Fibre Channel products.

The plugfest was open to all FC vendors and was attended by 23 hardware and software companies, broadly representing the Fibre Channel industry. All segments of the SAN infrastructure were well represented. The tests included: Host Bus Adapters (HBAs), Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) and storage arrays, switches, test generators and protocol analyzers. Tests also included a new generation of 10GFC switches and analyzers.

Sponsored by the FCIA, the plugfest provided a forum for testing interoperability between different manufacturers' FC products, which are expected to enter the market in 2005. While most attendees tested 4GFC products, some also tested 10 GFC switches to be used in Storage Area Network (SAN) fabrics.

Among the companies attending the Plugfest were FCIA members Agilent, Amphenol, ATTO, Brocade, Cisco, CNT, Emulex, Finisar, Fujitsu, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, I-TECH, LeCroy/CATC, LSI Logic, Molex, PMC-Sierra, QLogic, Seagate, Sierra Logic, Vitesse and Xyratex.

"In 2005, the Fibre Channel storage market will extend to next generation 4GFC products. It is mandatory that vendors provide solutions that are interoperable and backward compatible with existing installations," said Werner Glinka, Chairman of the Fibre Channel Industry Association. "Products that are interoperable and backward compatible will insure that investments in Fibre Channel storage infrastructure are protected and upgrades will work smoothly with existing storage systems."

"Fibre Channel storage is growing by leaps and bounds. Companies are readying a new generation of products, while the older technologies aren't going away," said David Woolf, UNH-IOL Consortium Technical manager for Fibre Channel. "Interoperability and backward compatibility will continue to be very important for Fibre Channel. We're also building a 4GFC and 10GFC test bed with key industry players for fine-tuning and debugging between group tests."

The next 4/10GFC plugfest has been scheduled for the week of May 16, 2005. All companies having an interest in 4/10GFC product interoperability are invited to participate. Contact the FCIA for more information. The UNH-IOL also runs the FC Consortium, a separate association of companies building new products and interested in testing them on an ongoing basis.

"Hitachi has taken numerous steps in the past year to advance 4Gb/s Fibre Channel because the new interface standard will provide a significant performance boost and protect existing Fibre Channel investments," said Manjeshwar Bhat, general manager, Enterprise HDD Business Unit, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "Hitachi's successful plugfest demonstration once again illustrates Hitachi's position as a technology innovator and performance leader."

"Cisco is committed to providing our customers with the highest level of investment protection possible, which includes forward and backward compatibility for 4Gbps and 10Gbps Fibre Channel modules within the Cisco MDS 9000 family of products, as well as interoperability with other vendors' products," said Ed Chapman, Cisco senior director of product management. "Participation in the FCIA plugfest underscores our commitment to Fibre Channel standards and complements our own extensive interoperability testing in Cisco's SAN labs."

"Emulex 4 Gb/s HBAs and embedded storage switches are already in the test and qualification phase with major OEMs, underscoring what we expect will be a rapid transition to 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel technologies," said Mike Smith, executive vice president of worldwide marketing for Emulex Corporation. "With the full range of Fibre Channel vendors weighing in with 4 Gb/s product announcements, this speed transition has a clear runway for moving into the adoption phase on schedule."

"As a technology that delivers twice the performance of the current generation of Fibre Channel, while maintaining backward compatibility, 4Gb brings great promise to the SAN space," said Harry Mason, LSI Logic, director of industry marketing. "As users begin to adopt this technology in 2005 and the coming years, it is essential that vendors prove that their products comply with the standard, interoperate and provide investment protection. This is a priority of LSI Logic, which is why we welcomed the opportunity to test our 4Gb HBAs with products from leading SAN component vendors at the industry's first ever 4Gb plugfest."

"The Fibre Channel plugfest was an excellent opportunity for I-TECH to test the robustness of our 4G Fibre Channel test solutions. It provided considerable customer feedback and product exposure. We consider industry plugfests to be invaluable in our product review cycle for ensuring customer satisfaction and product quality. Our active involvement in this and previous plugfests supports our continued commitment toward industry-wide product interoperability," said I-TECH CEO Steve Bucher.

"At the FCIA Fibre Channel plugfest, PMC-Sierra successfully demonstrated interoperability between our 2G and 4G FC Loop Switch product family and the industry leading Fibre Channel hard disk drives, switches, enclosures and cables," said Travis Karr, Director of Strategic Marketing, Enterprise Storage Division at PMC-Sierra. "Proven system interoperability accelerates our customers' time-to-market, enabling new classes of storage systems with increased capacity, performance and reliability."

"Agilent has a long-standing commitment to Fibre Channel industry standards and interoperability. We participated at the recent UNH plugfest and demonstrated great interoperability results with our family of 4Gb Fibre Channel products; including Tachyon DX4+ (PCI-X), QX4 (PCI-E) products, 4 Gb Loopswitch, and 4 Gb Fiber optic SFP modules," said Kevin Burbank, Marketing manager, Storage products. "This event and the work surrounding it will benefit the entire 4 Gb infrastructure and gives our OEM's confidence in the readiness of the new technology and its compatibility with prior FC speeds. "

"This year's FCIA plugfest will be a showcase for seamless interoperability of Fibre Channel products from a variety of vendors," said Frank Berry, vice president of corporate marketing, QLogic Corporation. "QLogic expects plugfest activity around its new 4Gb products to move quickly beyond basic interoperability, to advanced fabric functionality in a multi- vendor environment."

"Since 1996, Vitesse has provided a broad family of loop controllers, enclosure management processors, and other components for 1 and 2 Gb/s Fibre Channel disk array systems. The plugfest provided the opportunity to prove to leading OEMs that they can quickly migrate their systems to 4Gb/s without risk of interoperability issues with other 4 Gb/s systems or legacy 1 and 2 Gb/s storage components" said Tim Hornback, marketing director for Vitesse's Storage Products Division. "This will enable a very fast changeover to higher bandwidth in the SAN."

"Named the 2004 Market Leader in Fibre Channel Test and Measurement in 2004 by Analyst Firm Frost and Sullivan, Finisar was proud to participate in the latest 4Gb Fibre Channel plugfest at UNH," said Kevin Cornell, Sr. Vice President, General Manager Network Tools Division, Finisar." Finisar will continue to deliver industry-leading 1,2,4 and 10Gb Fibre Channel analysis and testing products to designers and builders of Fibre Channel equipment and will help push the envelope of the Fibre Channel protocol for the future."

About the Fibre Channel Industry Association

The Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) is a nonprofit international organization of manufacturers, systems integrators, developers, systems vendors, industry professionals and end users. With 80 member companies and FCIA affiliates in the United States and Japan, FCIA is committed to delivering a broad base of Fibre Channel infrastructure to support a wide array of industry applications within the mass storage and IT-based arenas. FCIA working groups focus on specific aspects of the technology, targeting both vertical and horizontal markets including storage, video, networking and SAN management. For more information on FCIA, please visit our web site: www.fibrechannel.org, contact us: info@fibrechannel.org or call 1-415-561-6270.

About the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory

Established in 1988, the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) is a non-profit organization that offers comprehensive interoperability and conformance-based testing through 19 technology-based groups, called consortiums. Test solutions created at the UNH-IOL offer a set of methods to increase interoperability through protocol operations, signaling, point-to-point and multi-system scenarios. For more information, visit the UNH-IOL website at: www.iol.unh.edu.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.


Source: Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA); LSI Logic

CONTACT: Chris Lyon, Executive Director of FCIA, +1-425-317-9594 or
Clyon870@cs.com; or Jon Carlson of LSI Logic, jcarlson@lsil.com; or Chris
Volpe of UNH-IOL Public Relations, +1-603-862-4349 or volpe@iol.unh.edu

Web site: http://www.fibrechannel.org/
http://www.lsilogic.com/


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