<< ATM vs Gig is a fair question. Fibre channel.....yes it is part of the GE standard which is still awaiting full ratification....but fibre channel on its own WILL NOT MAKE IT. >>
While I do not think that Fibre Channel will be the main 'to the desktop' technology by any means (I think adapter cards will support ATM, GE, FC, and HIPPI and all will be used) I do believe it is very naive to say that Fibre Channel will not make it. One need not do much research to find this out now.
Some of the brightest networking minds have been putting their money in Fibre Channel start-ups (ever heard of Andy Bechtolscheim who started Granite and Bill Joy???---> they have both put venture money into Brocade which is a private Fibre Channel switch co)...do you think these guys are idiots?
There is absolutely no dispute that GE will be huge or that GE ponytops on the bottom two layers of FC, but please be aware that FC attacks the 'other' side of the server than GE and will mostly first be used in storage. What are large companies like QNTM, SEG, and Western Digital moving towards on the back of RAIDs? I believe it is FC, and not GE interfaces.
If you check recent news from companies like Bull, Sequent (read latest revenue report), Sun, Data General and others, many products are just now starting to pop up (ie. like Data General NT servers with FC support to connect directly to storage) with Fibre Channel on them.
So, that is RAIDs, JBODs, and Servers that will all have Fibre Channel support, with RAIDs not offering GE support for all I know. RAID storage is a very large business! Now, how do would one connect all those? Hubs, switches and routers will be made by several players and these will start popping up very soon bc of the many benefits.
The growth of SANS (storage area networks) are poised to grow solidly in the future with the increased I/O and networking needs caused by larger file sizes, video, and/or larger databases. Fibre Channel is essential to the SANS of the future and is clearly better than SCSI for its speed, distance, fibre use, and larger loop (way more drives) benefits.
Network Guru, I'd look a little more into Fibre Channel as something that can co-exist with the growth of GE, ATM, and IP switching. Storage is important and will not be small potatoes like you think. :-)
thoughts?
ALL IMHO
pigboy |
