J, It's not GJS (who he?), but here's Dell's take on FC/NGIO -
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Future Of SAN
The SAN focus on external storage will enable smaller server form factors, making it natural to package many servers in a rack and to treat them as clusters. [aka Compute Area Networks "CANs"] Clustering and SAN are synergistic architectures, and one future scenario might merge cluster fabric with SAN fabric. If Fibre Channel is enhanced to support low-latency, interprocessor communications, it might become the common fabric for "SCANs," or Storage/Cluster Area Networks.
Next Generation I/O (NGIO) opens up other possible future scenarios for SANs. If storage devices support NGIO interfaces directly, SCANs arrive in a different form. Or, if bridges are the natural way to interconnect NGIO clusters to Fibre Channel networks, SCANs may never arrive. [i.e. if FIO gets a say]
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Dell, Sun, Hitachi, NEC and Siemens are working with Intel on VI and NGIO. To get a clear reading on NGIO and its relation to Fibre Channel, I recommend the Aberdeen Group's White Paper on NGIO. You have to be a member, but it's free to join. There's also some other good SAN stuff in their Clariion report.
aberdeen.com
I think it's clear that FC in a modified form can play a part in NGIO. ADPT and COMS are aligned with the FIO camp, and we know that they think Fibre Channel has no future in Future IO.
Douglas
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