News
Interoperability Focus of Switch Manufacturers
- By Scott Bekker
- July 20, 1999
A group of switch manufacturers will announce tomorrow an Open Standards Fabric Initiative (OSFI) under which they have agreed to work together to promote interoperability between Fibre Channel switches.
The group aims to provide heterogeneous switching between multiple vendors, interoperable standards and common manageability. Fibre Channel has been coming on as a high-performing pipe for Storage Area Networks (SANs), which have been traditionally using SCSI.
"Interoperability between Fibre Channel fabric switches is mandatory for broad end-user acceptance of open SANs," says Robert Gray, research director for storage systems for International Data Corp. (IDC, www.idc.com). "It is great to see these suppliers taking this head on. This initiative will add momentum to Fibre Channel SAN adoption."
The vendors in the initiative are Ancor Communications Inc. (www.ancor.com), Brocade Communications Inc. (www.brocade.com), Gadzoox Networks Inc. (www.gadzoox.com), McData Corp. (www.mcdata.com) and Vixel Corp. (www.vixel.com). -- Brian Ploskina
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.