FCIA members interoperate at summer plugfest

Last month, the University of New Hampshire hosted another of the Fibre Channel Industry Association's (FCIA) open-industry 'plugfests' designed to test the interoperability of Fibre Channel products connected to form a fabric. Formally dubbed "a large group test period," the event focused on interoperability of 1 and 2 Gigabit devices across a fabric and testing remote backup across Fibre Channel.

According to FCIA there were twelve participating hardware and software companies. In a statement, Ed von Adlung, FCIA president, called the improved interoperability demonstrated at the event "very exciting." In particular, von Adlung said several switch vendors came together to build a fabric characterized by 1 and 2 Gigabit interoperability. He also hailed, the "great progress" made on different storage management applications.

Although he did not attend the event (analysts were excluded) Arun Taneja, an analyst at Enterprise Storage Group, noted that at plugfests things usually go well because people there are truly interested in making things work. "Then politics often enters at the headquarters when companies make decisions about what is in their interest and what is not," he said. In general, Taneja also noted, Fibre Channel has continued to fare well despite the economy and interoperability issues.

Representatives from Brocade, Cisco, Exabyte, Finisar, I-tech, LSI Logic, McDATA, Qlogic, Seagate, Spirent, Vixel Corp, and Xyratex participated in the New Hampshire event. The next FCIA-sponsored plugfest is scheduled for September 10-12 and will be held on the exhibit floor at the N+I/Comdex convention in Atlanta.

More information on this topic:

About the author: Alan Earls is a freelance writer in Franklin, MA.