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

To: trendmastr who wrote (20925)	2/28/1999 7:23:00 PM
From: Roger Arquilla	Respond to of 29386

Does anyone expect EMC's press release tomorrow to have any impact on Ancor? Short of being mentioned as an OEM or supplier, could anything else they might say help us out? Recent volume and price would suggest no, but there is always hope.

To: trendmastr who wrote (20925)	3/1/1999 7:40:00 AM
From: Neil S	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29386

Ancor VP Engineering, Dr. Thomas Raeuchle , responds to the PC Week article "Just say no to Fibre Channel SANs". zdnet.com Fibre Channel, yes While Michael Surkan's musings on Gigabit Ethernet LAN alternatives to Fibre Channel SANs were thought-provoking, there are clear technological and market advantages to the current storage-area network model, especially scalable and fault-tolerant switched SANs ("Just say no to Fibre Channel SANs," Feb. 15, Page 102). For example, Gigabit Ethernet, despite its appropriateness as an IP networking technology, is a poor channel technology. Gigabit Ethernet's small 1.5KB packet size induces a large processor load because the processor has to service so many more interrupts. Each time a packet is received from the network, an interrupt is sent to the processor. Obviously, a 1.5KB packet stream interrupts the processor roughly 85,000 times more often than a 125MB Fibre Channel packet stream. That leaves less processor bandwidth available for other applications. One workaround would be to use 2KB frames and implement sequencing, but this is incompatible with most Gigabit Ethernet LANs, voiding the benefits of Gigabit Ethernet standardization. Flow control is another case in point; using packet loss as a trigger for flow control is a waste of resources. Fibre Channel does not lose frames, due to its built-in, standard, flow-control mechanism. In addition, there is the issue of SCSI support. Fibre Channel has it; Gigabit Ethernet doesn't. In fact, ask any RAID, disk drive or tape vendor about its plans for Gigabit Ethernet--they don't exist. Without SCSI support, Gigabit Ethernet cannot circumvent SCSI's scalability and performance limits. Meanwhile, vendors and server companies have announced SCSI-over-Fibre Channel support. Finally, mention of Gigabit Ethernet interoperability's growing pains was absent from Surkan's column. Fibre Channel interoperability is near completion. Gigabit Ethernet for everything doesn't make sense. Wasn't that also the promise of ATM? Meanwhile, Fibre Channel products and complete SAN solutions are shipping today. Thomas Raeuchle Vice President of Engineering Ancor Communications Inc.