Gadzoox Shows the Fabric

Gadzoox released reference code to help related vendors create products that will be compatible with its Fibre Channel fabric switches.

by Michael Singer of siliconvalley.internet.com [August 14, 2002]

Storage Area Network (SAN) player Gadzoox Networks took steps it hopes will simplify development time for its fiber-based products.

The San Francisco-based company said it has made its Virtual Switch Interface and Datamover reference code available. Both are new features of the company's FabriCore Engines Open SAN operating system.

Developed as part of the Open SAN OS fabric services, the Virtual Switch Interface is designed to simplify iSCSI and FCIP product development (the two technologies are in development but promise to deliver true storage over IP, which should lower the costs of deploying a SAN and make it easier to build a single SAN for an entire corporation, even if the corporate network is global).

The products will be marketed to multi-protocol switch vendors, storage system. and HBA vendors and vendors developing products based on new protocols that need to connect to current Fibre Channel (FC) devices.

The Virtual Switch Interface has three levels of interaction with the FC fabric services: a Virtual Service API, a Virtual Port API, and a Virtual Link interface.

The company said its Virtual Service API makes it easy for developers to create unique fabric service level mappings between FC and other protocols such as iSCSI.

The Virtual Port API simplifies the process of mapping non-FC protocol devices into the FC SAN and receiving notifications when changes occur in the FC SAN.

The Virtual Link Interface enables the creation of Virtual E_Ports for protocols like FCIP, which are virtual inter-switch links between non-FC ports and FC ports.

"We are the first company to offer Fibre Channel Fabric Services intellectual property to customers," said Gadzoox president and CEO Steve Dalton. "Fabric services are required by customers building Fibre Channel capable products and those customers that purchase FabriCore Engines Fabric Services could find their product development time reduced by 12 to 18 months."

The Virtual Switch Interface is offered as part of the Open SAN OS standards-based fabric services along with other advanced features like the Proxy Server, which probes legacy devices, and Registered State Change Notification (RSCN) Suppression, a management feature required for rich media applications.

Also new and available is Datamover reference code, which is an agent that enables serverless backup of data. The Datamover was designed to move data between Fibre channel target devices without having the data go through a server. The company says this is the fundamental component of serverless backup.

Pricing information is available on the company's website.

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