Looks like PR campaign by Fibre Channel Association is kicking into gear. The following article is from Communications Week:
February 24, 1997, Issue: 651
Section: Network Infrastructure -- Switches, Routers, Hubs,
Remote Access, NICs, Topolog
Don't Count Out Fibre Channel Yet
By Jeff Caruso
As prestandard Gigabit Ethernet products start to hit the shelves, some
vendors are hoping users won't forget about the other gigabit network
technology: Fibre Channel.
Jaycor Networks Inc., San Diego, has started shipping
1-gigabit-per-second adapters and a hub. Finisar Corp., Mountain
View, Calif., recently introduced a Fibre Channel gigabit link analyzer.
And Gadzoox Microsystems Inc., San Jose, Calif.; Interphase Corp.,
Dallas; and Seagate Software Technology Inc., Scotts Valley, Calif.,
bundled their pieces of the Fibre Channel puzzle together into a single
starter package.
Like initial Gigabit Ethernet implementations, Fibre Channel is aimed at
server-to-server connections. The lower levels of the Gigabit Ethernet
standard are based on Fibre Channel as well.
"Over the next couple of years, the big question will be how Fibre
Channel will be differentiated from Gigabit Ethernet," said Craig Johnson,
principal analyst at CurrentAnalysis, a consultancy in Ashburn, Va.
Vendors may find ways to make Fibre Channel more attractive by taking
advantage of its abilities on controllers, he said.
Similar Pricing Likely
From a market perspective, Gigabit Ethernet has a large advantage, since
users are already familiar with Ethernet at slower speeds, Johnson said.
Pricing for Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel is likely to be similar, he
said.
In the past few weeks, vendors such as Alteon Networks Inc., San Jose,
Calif., and GigaLabs Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif., have started rolling out the
first Gigabit Ethernet products. A host of other vendors are expected to
follow suit from now to June (CommWeek, Feb. 17)
Such products are expected to challenge ATM, FDDI and the various
forms of IP switching; enterprise networks stand to benefit from the
price-cutting that is also expected as a check against Gigabit Ethernet's
attractiveness.
Fibre Channel standards have been established for several years, but
only in the past year or so has the state of the art advanced to gigabit
speeds. The standards provide for speeds up to 4 Gbps, but vendors
acknowledge it will probably be several years before Fibre Channel
equipment reaches that level.
Fibre Channel vendors realistically don't expect to overtake Gigabit
Ethernet. But they assert that the technology is well-suited for specific
applications.
It has a history of reliability, said Charles Bazaar, Jaycor's vice president
of marketing. Fibre Channel has checksums in the data packets to ensure
their integrity, and it notifies the destination that a packet is on its way, so
that the receiving system can allocate space for the data in the packet, he
said.
Bazaar added that the first markets for gigabit Fibre Channel will be very
specialized fields, such as computer-aided design, medical imaging and
video editing. It will excel in remote storage applications, since it has a
range of six miles, he said.
In some ways, Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel will complement each
other, said Rick Donihoo, marketing manager of Fibre Channel at
Interphase. Gigabit Ethernet will be used as a network backbone that
storage systems and hosts connect to via Fibre Channel, he said.
Jaycor started shipping PCI and Sbus versions of its gigabit Fibre
Channel adapters. The PCI adapter costs $1,995, and the Sbus version
costs $3,530. Jaycor's $2,900 loop hub provides a centralized
connection point for all nodes on the Fibre Channel network.
Finisar's GLA-3100 Fibre Channel gigabit link analyzer monitors up to
eight links and stores up to 2 gigabytes of traced data per link. It can
look for a particular event to trigger the data capture. The analyzer is
available now for $43,360.
The Fibre Channel starter kit put together by a coalition of three
companies includes Seagate's 9G storage equipment, a Gadzoox hub
and two Interphase gigabit adapters. The $9,995 package should appeal
to users who want to get their feet wet with Fibre Channel, the
companies said.
Finisar can be reached at www. finisar.com or 415-691-4000; Gadzoox
at www.gadzoox.com or 408-360-4950; Interphase at
www.iphase.com or 214-654-5555; and Jaycor at www.jaycor.com or
619-453-6580.
Copyright r 1997 CMP Media Inc.
[Go Back To Results] [Previous Doc] [Next Doc] [New Search] [Search the Web]
You can reach this article directly:
techweb.com |
