SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 18, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- The Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) today announced that it will showcase a wide variety of 4Gb/s Fibre Channel (4GFC) and tiered storage solutions from a broad range of leading vendors and solution providers in its demonstration (Booth G-24), entitled, "4GFC- Fast and Flexible," at Storage Networking World (SNW), which will be held October 24 -- 27, 2005 at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes Resort in Orlando, Florida.
The goal of the FCIA's "4GFC -- Fast and Flexible" demonstration is to highlight the unprecedented speed of 4GFC, and demonstrate its flexible role in creating cost-effective, tiered storage solutions. SNW attendees can witness first-hand a wide variety of commercially available 4GFC offerings that are well suited for high-bandwidth applications like data backup and transactional processing.
By offering full compatibility with past (1GFC and 2GFC) and future (8GFC) purchases, 4GFC also delivers on its promise of investment protection for storage networking customers. In addition, tiered storage allows customers to maintain true system flexibility and investment protection by providing customers with the flexibility to mix and match the type of drives in their enclosures according to the needs of their applications.
"The FCIA will be demonstrating a variety of products this year -- from a wide array of 4GFC products to tiered storage solutions," said Tom Hammond-Doel, Chairman of FCIA. "This multi-vendor cooperative demonstration shows real-world scenarios in which customers can use Fibre Channel technology for significantly enhanced performance and flexibility today."
"4GFC Fibre Channel is the next logical step in Storage Networking," said Erik Ottem, director of marketing at Agilent Technologies. "Our Tachyon Fibre Channel controller was the first available in delivering advanced 4GFC storage arrays to the market, and the arrival of the entire 4GFC infrastructure indicates it's time to step up to 4GFC SANs now."
"Leaders in the storage industry continue to demonstrate the value of Fibre Channel for implementation of storage area networks, and advances such as end-to-end 4GFC capability illustrate that the FCIA roadmap is on track to meet evolving customer requirements," said Tom Buiocchi, Brocade vice president of worldwide marketing and support. "Fibre Channel performance and reliability make it the technology of choice in SANs that help address issues of cost, complexity and compliance across IT organizations, and Brocade is pleased to be a part of FCIA activities at SNW that highlight these advantages."
"Emulex is excited to partner with a number of companies at SNW to demonstrate our advances in 4GFC and FC-SATA technologies," said Mike Smith, executive vice president of worldwide marketing, Emulex Corporation. "These advances show how Emulex is solidly positioned to lead the transition to 4GFC technology and to drive enhanced investment protection for our storage system OEMs by creating cost-effective FC-SATA enabled tiered storage solutions."
"The marketplace is quickly adopting 4GFC technology," said Steve Gardner, director of product marketing, Engenio. "By having all of the leading providers of Fibre Channel technology in one place at Storage Networking World, attendees have the opportunity to discover the benefits of the most recent 4GFC offerings, and how simple it is to transition to 4GFC solutions."
"This is an exciting time to be a part of the vendor community pursuing innovative Fibre Channel technology, and we are committed to working collaboratively with FCIA at SNW and beyond to deliver next generation hard disk drives that will support a wide array of applications," said Mike Fitzpatrick, senior research executive, Fujitsu Computer Products of America and former FCIA chairman.
"Intel is helping to drive the transition of 4GFC optics in the market," said Robert Zona, marketing director at Intel's Optical Platform Division. "Our high performance transceivers are multi-rate capable resulting in a single component shipping in volume to both 4GFC and 2GFC systems. This provides operational cost savings to our customers in addition to providing reliable, high volume supply of quality products."
"In large part, the success of 4GFC Fibre Channel is due to the collaboration of vendors to ensure product interoperability as demonstrated in this week's FCIA showcase," said Lisa Kimball, host bus adapter product manager, LSI Logic. "LSI Logic has been shipping 4GFC HBA solutions since July and we are pleased to bring our proven technology to SNW to join with other SAN component vendors to demonstrate the full capabilities of 4GFC Fibre Channel and help drive the adoption of 4GFC in the market place."
"The FCIA 4GFC interoperability demonstration provides a great opportunity for customers and partners to get first hand exposure to the newest 4GFC storage networking products," said Bob Williamsen, McDATA senior director of strategic marketing and FCIA board member. "The demonstration features the latest industry-leading products, including McDATA's recently launched 4GFC Sphereon fabric switches, designed to meet customers' changing technology needs, timelines and budgets."
"Molex is looking forward to participating in the FCIA 4GFC demonstration at SNW. As a supplier of 4GFC copper and optical cables and connectors, Molex is providing the connectivity enabling Fibre Channel to double its speed while maintaining the signal integrity so vital to its performance," said Jay Neer, strategic product manager, Molex. "In addition to the cabling, Molex also provides the EMI enhanced SFP cages and connectors used for the pluggable copper and optical modules. This opportunity to collaborate with the leading Fibre Channel suppliers provides a good sampling of the interoperability achievable with this advance in technology. 4GFC solutions ranging from low cost short haul copper to long distance optical are here."
"4GFC Fibre Channel products are now available from a wide variety of leading vendors, just in time for bandwidth-thirsty applications like the booming HD video market," said Jesse Parker, vice president of marketing for QLogic's Switch Products Group. "4GFC standard interoperability ensures compatibility with existing 1GFC and 2GFC Fibre Channel products as well as future 8GFC offerings. This provides customers with investment protection to confidently deploy the products that are being showcased here today."
"Today's demonstration that includes Seagate's latest 4GFC Fibre Channel Cheetahs reveals the strength of this technology and is helping fuel the continued momentum for 4GFC Fibre Channel technology," said Jeff Loebbaka, vice president of Global Marketing, Seagate. "Seagate's latest 4GFC Fibre Channel Cheetahs represent the state-of-the-art and are optimized to serve the needs of enterprise IT professionals for the most critical storage requirements."
"Sierra Logic is pleased to supply the only production-ready, 4GFC tiered-storage solution in the FCIA demo at SNW. Our BR-2401 Silicon Storage Bridge, now shipping in production quantities, enables low-cost SATA drives to be installed into virtually any 4GFC Fibre Channel slot," said Bryan Cowger, vice president of marketing for Sierra Logic. "This in turn enables storage vendors to develop one 4GFC enclosure that can be configured dynamically for either Online or Nearline applications, simply by installing the appropriate class of disk drive. This Sierra Logic solution demonstrates that FC investments can be readily preserved while adding low-cost bulk storage and sacrificing nothing in terms of data integrity and high availability."
"Xyratex is pleased to be participating in the industry drive to 4GFC acceptance," said Tim Piper, director of marketing, Xyratex. "We see 4GFC and Tiered Storage as the next step in the maturity of Fibre Channel. The Xyratex SBOD technology enables our partners and customers to fully integrate their solutions seamlessly into this explosive market, whatever their application or vertical focus."
About the Fibre Channel Industry Association
The Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) is a nonprofit international organization of manufacturers, systems integrators, developers, systems vendors, industry professionals and end users. With 80 member companies and FCIA affiliates in the United States and Japan, FCIA is committed to delivering a broad base of Fibre Channel infrastructure to support a wide array of industry applications within the mass storage and IT-based arenas. FCIA working groups focus on specific aspects of the technology, targeting both vertical and horizontal markets including storage, video, networking and SAN management. For more information on FCIA, please visit our web site: www.fibrechannel.org, contact us: info@fibrechannel.org or call 1-415-561-6270.
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