San interoperability moves closer
National Committee for IT moves to improve Fibre Channel
An industry standards body took another step last week towards making storage area network (San) switches interoperable in multi-vendor environments.
The move saw the National Committee for IT adopt the FC-SW-2 multi-vendor Fibre Channel switch interoperability standard.
According to Skip Jones, chairman of the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA), all six existing Fibre Channel switch vendors should soon be able to put FC-SW-2-compliant switches in the hands of end users and resellers.
FC-SW-2 is an extension of the FC-SW-1 standard currently in use, but places a greater emphasis on the management of the switches. It also allows switches, regardless of the vendor, to pass data to each other and communicate with each other, Jones said. "This raises the bar on how [Fibre Channel] fabrics intercommunicate. It's a great standard," he explained.
Analyst IDC claimed that fabric switch shipments will experience a compounded annual growth of 69.4 per cent from 2000 to 2004, and placed Brocade as the leading vendor, with a 93 per cent market share.
Paul Trowbridge, marketing director at Brocade, Europe, Middle East & Africa, said the firm has worked closely with the standards organisations to provide the core code for the new standard.
He added that FC-SW-1 did not address how to build a mixed vendor network and that, although this was not a common situation, it meant that when companies have data centres or make acquisitions there might be different Sans in place.
"End users are no longer locked into using just one vendor. This should help remove any objections from end users that resellers are faced with when trying to sell or deploy a San," said Trowbridge.
Paul Talbut, chairman of the FCIA Europe, said: "In Europe the tremendous confidence in FC-SW-2 will undoubtedly lead to a further boost in demand for Fibre Channel products by potential users who are still not entirely clear about how storage networking operates, but who know this is the best way forward for them.
"They will turn to independent resellers and integrators for guidance, education and support, particularly when integrating storage with existing platforms and legacy investments."