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Technology Stocks : The New QLogic (ANCR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: George Dawson who wrote (17791)	8/25/1998 5:32:00 PM
From: Roger Arquilla	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29386

What...more bad news? Down 4.76% on 361,300 volume. Are things so bleak we can't even hold in the low 1's?

To: George Dawson who wrote (17791)	8/25/1998 8:39:00 PM
From: Craig Stevenson	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 29386

George, I finally got a chance to read the original NWFusion article(s), and the subsequent rebuttal from Ancor's Dr. Rauechle. Some of the original points made by Mr. Desmond are truly laughable. ("I tried to ignore them on the theory that storage is not really a network issue.") Anyone who can't see the connection between storage and networks doesn't have a lot of credibility with me. On every network I own, service, or administer, storage IS the network. I very much liked the fact that Dr. Rauechle wrote a letter to try to argue the case for Fibre Channel, and refute the information provided by the Gigabit Ethernet vendors. (This should happen each and every time a high-profile publication prints something that attempts to disparage Fibre Channel.) The interrupt issue that Dr. Rauechle discussed is a key element of Alteon's approach to Gigabit Ethernet. (They are pushing Jumbo frames for this very reason.) It seems to me that there is also a real lack of understanding about what a SAN is. The case can certainly be made for Gigabit Ethernet in the LAN, (which could encompass Network Attached Storage (NAS), but arguing that Gigabit Ethernet is suitable for the SAN ignores at least one key point. High-performance disk drives have SCSI or Fibre Channel interfaces. By their own admission (the Gigabit Ethernet companies), Fibre Channel was designed as a channel technology. The fact that it is also a very capable network technology is simply a bonus. Another issue is that high-performance server I/O slots are generally a scarce commodity. Fibre Channel's ability to provide both channel and LAN connectivity means that server slots are conserved. The fact is that Ethernet wasn't ever designed to be a CHANNEL technology, and it simply doesn't have what it takes to become one. It is a lot easier to argue that Fibre Channel can replace Ethernet and/or ATM in the LAN space than it is to argue that Gigabit Ethernet can replace SCSI or Fibre Channel in the SAN. Of course, this whole topic underscores the need for a Fibre Channel to Ethernet bridge. <g> Craig