The Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) announced completion of its second 16 Gb Fibre Channel Plugfest and the eighth FCoE Plugfest. Hosted by the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Lab (UNH-IOL), the events took place the week of May 14, 2012.

As was the case in most plugfest, event provided vendors with the opportunity to demonstrate interoperability and otherwise collaborate on their respective Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and 16GFC products. Points of emphasis during the plugfests included:

    Advanced infrastructure connectivity, including FCoE multi-hop
    Multihop configurations between switches, initiators, and targets, including DCB switches
    Interoperability between 10G FCoE products and 16GFC switches, initiators, and targets
    Fibre Channel 16GFC testing of the physical layer connectivity between initiators, targets, switches including 16Gb FC 5M and 1M passive copper; 8Gb FC 5M active copper; and OM2, OM3, and OM4 multimode optical fiber with the maximum lengths specified in the standard
    In addition to the physical layer testing, 16GFC direct connect between initiator and target and speed negotiation between 16GFC and 8GFC were demonstrated.

“As Fibre Channel continues its predominance as the storage network infrastructure interconnect and protocol in the enterprise data center, users are assured by our plugfests that native FC and FCoE products from different vendors will perform as advertised with solid plug-and-play interoperability,” said Skip Jones, FCIA chairman, QLogic. “From 1GFC to our most recent 16GFC and 10GFCoE plugfests at UNH, FCIA is delighted to continue our 20 year partnership with UNH.”

Ten companies participated in the events:

    Amphenol
    Broadcom
    Brocade
    Cisco
    DCS
    JDSU
    HP
    LeCroy
    QLogic
    SanBlaze

Bill Martin, FC Plugfest Chair, Emulex, added, “As products are being released that support 10G FCoE and 16GFC, the plugfest continues to demonstrate interoperability of FCoE and FC products and backward compatibility of FC products at 4GFC, 8GCF, and 16GFC. This interoperability and backward compatibility allows customers to continue to grow their storage infrastructure taking advantage of the speed and functional improvements while leveraging their current investment.”

The Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) is a non-profit international organization that aims to serve as the independent technology and marketing voice of the Fibre Channel industry. The group helps member organizations promote and position Fibre Channel and provides a focal point for Fibre Channel information, standards advocacy, and education.

Lightwave Staff