Geof, you make some good points. Let me respond.
1. I agree that this forum should be renamed "ATM vs Gigabit Ethernet
vs Fibre Channel."
2. I agree with you that Fibre Channel implementation has been
limited so far. However this is changing rapidly. Fibre Channel
is now exploding in the storage arena. And as an interconnect
between servers Fibre Channel is also taking off. So far in the
LAN, Fibre Channel implementation has been limited to certain high
performance LANs requiring QOS such as medical, CAD/CAM, scientific
research, post production etc. For example, Ancor has a Fibre Channel
LAN in Japan using 64 port FC switches and FC adapters in a CAD/CAM
network. The network has more than 100 of these switches connected
to over 1000 workstations. With the volumes of FC that will be
used in storage I believe that costs can fall fast.
BTW, EMF Associates did a study saying that total FC revenue will
hit 10 Billion by the year 2000.
3.Fibre Channel does handle TCP/IP. Also Fibre Channel can
operate in either Connection-oriented mode (class 1) or
connectionles service (class 2 or 3).
4. I do believe that the Gigabit Ethernet market will be huge,
but only as a backbone to Ethernet and Fast Ethernet networks.
I don't think Gigabit Ethernet will make it to the desktop (i.e.
1 gps to the desktop.) because of all the problems it has (i.e.
scalability, quality of service, the RSVP standards mess, the
UTP standards mess. etc).
Regards,
Steve |
