Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Neil S who wrote (21287)	4/6/1999 8:30:00 AM
From: KJ. Moy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29386

Neil, <<EMC last month formed its own FibreAlliance, citing the slow progression of standards development. As reported in Network World, other organizations such as the Fibre Channel Association and the Fibre Channel Committee are also involved in the development of standards for open storage networking.>> It seems to me that EMC's main goal was to accelerate the development of SAN standard by submitting a draft to the FCA first. If the rest of the players do not act, a standard could well be handed to them. This, by the way, is what many FC members want other than the big players which have vested interest in how things supposed to shape. <<<Another industry analyst has a different view. "It appears that these vendors are just renewing the vows they took in joining SNIA," says Anders Lofgren of Giga Information. His view is shared by at least one fibre channel storage vendor who notes, "Membership on this committee was a matter of raising your hand and you were in." Although the buy-in to this consortium was easy, the vendor admits that open interoperability standards will only help the industry. >>> <<<As part of this consortium, the SNIA will deliver standards, education and services to allow SANs to reach a broader market. Companies involved in the consortium will donate time, equipment and funds to make interoperability work. The consortium believes it can deliver results by midyear. >>> EMC's Fibrealliance was by invitation. Brocade's omission was viewed as political reasons, (whatever that means). Since the assignment of the new chairman of SNIA (Dennis ? from EDS), this new consortium is formed. Anyone can join from what I can gather. But, members have to commit resources (i.e. manpower, labs, equipments, etc). Since Brocade is in the process of doing the IPO, it is good PR for them. For Ancor, it may be best for them to wait for a standard and just implement it so that they don't have to spend valuable resources. IMO Brocade can actually represent the switch makers (their rivalry here is irrelevant). The implementation part for hubs and switches from what I've heard is rather simple. It is a day or two's engineering work. KJ

To: Neil S who wrote (21287)	4/17/1999 8:40:00 AM
From: Neil S	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29386

SNIA gossip: performancecomputing.com Myth shattering...In Monterey I learned that the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) was attempting a bit of mind control of its own when it held its teleconference love-fest back on April 5. At the time, press and analysts were told how much progress had been made on defining heterogeneous storage-area-network specifications. SANs are becoming the hottest topic in IT these days because they promise vastly improved ways to manage, move, and store data. Today, SANs are only usable if you buy into a single-vendor approach, something few IT managers want, so heterogeneous standards would seem to be essential if the market is to take off, hence SNIA's work to define specifications that ANSI or the IETF (and eventually, ISO) will agree to. Although we were assured during the phone conference call that all was rosy with SNIA's efforts, I learned this week that Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sun, Veritas, and others were furious with EMC's Fibre Channel Alliance and Enterprise Storage Network plans. According to a source who was at the meeting, one Compaq representative almost needed to be physically restrained "from flying across the table and throttling" EMC's rep. Why does EMC's efforts to build standards around its storage technology seem more egregious than, say, Sun's StorX initiative? According to another SNIA source, it's because EMC alone has the ability to establish de facto standards. "They're the dominant player in the glass house. If they get enough companies to play by their rules, SNIA is dead," he said.