Articles Related to FCIP

Interoperability and manageability of data storage will be the primary focus of products that Network Appliance Inc., Hitachi Data Systems Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and others introduce next week at Storage Networking World.

Storage networking remains one of the key elements that enterprises will deploy in the next several years in support of application deployments as well as storage and server consolidation, and as part of the larger shift to network storage. But the ongoing economic climate will curtail many enterprises' plans to deploy these networks in the second half of 2002 and first half of 2003, slowing the growth of the storage networking market for the next several years to one of guarded momentum.

In another sign that IP technology is beginning to find its way into the world of storage networking, McData Corp. at Comdex demonstrated a forthcoming blade that moves IP traffic at line rate from its FC (Fiber Channel)-based director-class switch.

Two groups of vendors have set up separate transcontinental and global storage networks based on emerging IP-based data-transport standards. But the storage-over-IP technologies still aren't expected to be robust enough for enterprise uses for at least another year, say analysts.