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Technology Stocks : Son of SAN - Storage Networking Technologies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: George Dawson who wrote (1231)	5/7/1999 10:50:00 AM
From: J Fieb	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4808

biz.yahoo.com Wednesday May 5, 2:53 pm Eastern Time Company Press Release Fibre Channel Community Announces Next Interoperability Test Period Test period will introduce more advanced concepts including SAN management and application layer characteristics SARATOGA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 5, 1999-- The Fibre Channel Community, an international non-profit organization of over 100 leading Fibre Channel companies, today announced that its next round of interoperability testing will be held July 18th 23rd in Dallas. With Fibre Channel's emergence as a mainstream enterprise networking architecture, many organizations are deploying Fibre Channel devices from competing vendors within the same topology. As a result, multi-vendor interoperability is of critical importance for insuring equipment compatibility for IT managers building storage-centric network architectures based on Fibre Channel. The purpose of the testing is to isolate manufacturer-specific anomalies that may affect multi-vendor configurations and to identify any ambiguities of the Fibre Channel specification that may also impact the ability of users to build Storage Area Networking (SAN) solutions utilizing equipment from several different vendors. To date, the Fibre Channel Community has sponsored six formal interoperability testing periods which typically include between 30 and 40 Fibre Channel vendors. ''Despite the market perception that heterogeneous SAN implementations are still a year or two away, many corporations are actively deploying multi-vendor solutions today,'' said Mike Fitzpatrick, Chairman of the Fibre Channel Community. ''In order to eliminate the need to perform one-on-one projects where vendors have to get their engineers together in a room to verify their products work together, we are aggressively pursuing a strategy to achieve interoperability across the entire compliment of products from the Fibre Channel manufacturing community.'' Interoperability is a process that becomes increasingly robust as a technology matures. Early Fibre Channel Community interoperability testing focused on Fibre Channel configured in point-to-point and arbitrated loop (FC-AL) topologies. More recent test periods have been devoted to testing Fibre Channel fabrics (networks) utilizing both SCSI and IP protocols. The current test period will introduce more advanced concepts including SAN management and application layer characteristics. The July testing will be conducted at the Interoperability Lab at Interphase Corporation located in Dallas. Oversight, coordination and supervision will be provided by staff members of the University of New Hampshire's Interoperability Lab. Integration and support will be provided by an interdisciplinary team of technical personnel from Fibre Channel Community member companies. More information about the upcoming testing can be found at the Fibre Channel Community Web site at www.fccommunity.org or on the Interphase Web site at www.iphase.com/events. More than just ''Plug Fests'' Results from Fibre Channel Community interoperability tests are submitted to the ANSI T11 Committee, the standards body that governs Fibre Channel specifications, when relevant issues are identified which warrant ANSI consideration. Further, the testing also serves as a catalyst for public demonstrations of Fibre Channel solutions at industry events. For instance, such demonstrations this year have included: -0- -- CeBIT '99 The Fibre Channel Solutions group successfully demonstrated the interoperability aspects of a Fibre Channel based Storage Area Network (SAN) at CeBIT 99. Vendors from the Fibre Channel Community and Fibre Channel Association Europe showed a heterogeneous SAN running Backup and Clustering applications across a diverse range of hardware. -- NAB '99 The Fibre Channel Community sponsored "SANaganza" at NAB99. The SANaganza was a showcase of Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) technology connecting real-world video and audio creation and manipulation products from more than fifteen companies. See Fibre Channel Solutions at Networld + Interop Las Vegas Numerous multi-vendor Fibre Channel demonstrations will be on display at the Fibre Channel Solutions Showcase Booth no. 1212 at Networld + Interop Las Vegas '99. The show is taking place at the Las Vegas Convention Center, May 11-13. About the Fibre Channel Community The Fibre Channel Community is an international non-profit organization with membership that currently includes over 100 major companies representing a wide cross section of the industry embracing manufacturers of servers, disk drives, RAID storage modules, switches, hubs, adapter cards, test equipment, cables and connectors, and software solutions. The group's charter is to speed the development and deployment of products and services utilizing Fibre Channel technology by the promotion of industry cooperation and market awareness. Activities include technology demonstrations at tradeshows, sponsorship of interoperability testing sessions, and providing speakers for various industry events and seminars. Further information about the Fibre Channel Community can be found at www.fccommunity.org.