ACADEMIA

The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) is expanding its Fibre Channel testing suites to 4 Gbps using Finisar's Xgig 4 Gb FC tester. Finisar's Xgig test and analysis system will be used to achieve a level of testing at UNH-IOL that exceeds the industry-standard SANmark Qualification specifications. Having tested, debugged and refined FC software and hardware since 1995, the lab will now incorporate Finisar's Xgig into its array of conformance and interoperability test suites at data rates up to 4 Gbps. The test suites are used to generate detailed reports that can save companies costly research and development time and money. In addition companies may opt to use the UNH-IOL report to provide customers with third-party evidence of product conformance and interoperability. "Finisar's strategy is to provide powerful testing tools for lab environments," said Dave Buse, general manager of Finisar, "We are committed to serving the storage community with a family of Xgig products that ensure the highest levels of quality and protocol conformance so our customers can bring products to market faster." Xgig can create data patterns, modify data, insert data errors and generate data at transfer rates of 1Gb, 2 Gb and 4 Gb while sending frames point to point within a fabric or arbitrated loop connection. Evaluating the responses and analyzing performance is the pay-off. In addition, Xgig can be used in a variety of application scenarios, including product development, manufacturing, quality assurance, regression testing, and field trouble shooting. "Companies bringing 4 Gb FC products to market are more aware than ever that the leap from 2 Gb to 4 Gb is not trivial -- there will be issues to work out, as with any major technology transition," said David Woolf, manager of the UNH-IOL Fibre Channel Consortium. "The sooner the issues are addressed through conformance testing and debugging, the sooner high-quality interoperable products will reach customers and the healthier the market will be overall."