SCIENCE

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- The Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) announced today that it successfully completed the second of three Large Group Test Periods (LGTPs) scheduled for 2001. This open industry sponsored "Plugfest" was attended by 28 hardware and software companies involved in the Fibre Channel industry. The purpose of this event was to mature operability among these vendors' products by bringing together a wide range of people and products, educating vendors on how to execute the SANmark(TM) Qualification test suites and perform interoperability test tracks. These test tracks included 2Gig operation, Large Fabric operation, HBA API operation, FC-IP and Ad Hoc testing between vendors. According to Bill Martin, SANmark Technical Leader, "The FCIA established the SANmark Qualified Program to provide the industry with an objective indication of how Fibre Channel products perform against industry standards through the use of published conformance test suites." Martin went on to explain, "The ultimate objective is to protect our mutual customers' and end-users' investment in Fibre Channel technology, while accelerating market adoption and satisfying the continuously growing storage networking demand." Tom Hammond-Doel, FCIA secretary said, "Fibre Channel networks are typically held to a higher standard because of the critical path nature of the components. The SANmark Qualification Program is helping the industry to rapidly approach a level of plug and play that is beyond what is available with other protocols. This is because Fibre Channel solutions have, for several years, delivered 24 x 7 x 365 operation in mission critical Storage Area Networks (SAN)." Plugfest participants were overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the opportunity to collaborate within the FCIA-sponsored open industry event. One participant explained it this way, "There is an acceptance of (competitive) vendors working together. I find the Plugfest very impressive. All the players are here in one spot to work out problems and advance the industry. The Plugfest is accomplishing what it set out to accomplish." The third LGTP will be held later this fall. Representatives from the following companies participated in the event: Agilent Tech - http://www.agilent.com/ Bakbone Software, Inc. - http://www.bakbone.com/ Brocade Communications - http://www.brocade.com/ Chaparral Network Storage - http://www.chaparralnet.com/ Computer Network Technology - http://www.cnt.com/ Finisar - http://www.finisar.com/ Fujitsu - http://www.fcpa.com/ Gadzoox Networks - http://www.gadzoox.com/ Hitachi America - http://www.hitachi.com/ I-TECH - http://www.i-tech.com/ Infinity I/O - http://www.infinityio.com/ InRange Technology - http://www.inrange.com/ Interphase - http://www.iphase.com/ Lamprey Networks - http://www.lampreynetworks.com/ LSI Logic - http://www.lsilogic.com/ Lucent Technologies - http://www.lucent.com/ McDATA Corporation - http://www.mcdata.com/ MTI Technology - http://www.mti.com/ nStor Technologies - http://www.nstor.com/ QLogic - http://www.qlc.com/ SAN Navigator - http://www.sanavigator.com/ SAN Valley Systems - http://www.sanvalley.com/ Seagate Technology - http://www.seagate.com/ Spirent Communications - http://www.spirent.com/ Storage Engine, Inc. http://www.eccs.com/ Texas Memory Systems - www.texasmemorysystems.com/ University of New Hampshire - http://www.iol.unh.edu/ Vixel Corporation - http://www.vixel.com/ For further information visit http://www.fibrechannel.org