Emulex, QLogic Unveil 8-Gbit/s FC

Emulex and QLogic celebrated the eighth day of the eighth month of 2007 by issuing separate announcements of 8-Gbit/s Fibre Channel products.

Though many users are just getting into 4-Gbit/s wares, both suppliers insist higher-end customers, particularly those with increasingly virtualized networks, are looking to adopt the higher-speed networks within a year or so.

Some analysts agree. "I think the biggest driver for 8-gig Fibre Channel is the onslaught of virtualization. As people put more applications on one server, they need higher throughput HBAs," says Bob Laliberte of the Enterprise Strategy Group.

Both Emulex and QLogic say they're testing the 8-Gbit/s products now and expect to start sampling to OEMs this quarter. Both insist the 8-Gbit/s products will use the same drivers and management software offered for each vendor's previously released 2- and 4-Gbit/s kit.

Notably, though, there are no promises on pricing. "Pricing is set by OEMs. There will be a bit of a differential at first, until volume ramps up," says Scott McIntyre, VP of software and customer marketing at Emulex.Emulex is working on a series of PCI Express-based HBAs, mezzanine adapters for blade server cards, and embedded I/O controller. QLogic is readying PCIe HBAs, mezzanine server cards, core and stackable switches, and an iSCSI-to-8-Gbit/s Fibre Channel router.

Neither Emulex nor QLogic will comment on which OEMs are in the offing, though both claim to be in active discussions with prospective takers. Both vendors' HBAs are widely used by storage suppliers. Emulex's strongest OEM relationships are with HP and IBM. QLogic also has a well-documented relationship with Cisco, to whom it supplies Fibre Channel switches and InfiniBand directors, though its chief OEM dependencies are on IBM, HP, and Sun. (See QLogic Inches Closer to Cisco.)

Today's announcements raise many questions. For one thing, it's not clear when or how customers will move en masse to 8-Gbit/s. For now, it seems likeliest that, as mentioned earlier, users with heavy-duty SAN access requirements, such as video production companies, will be the first to glom on. For many, it will no doubt be a relief to get faster SAN connectivity without changing technologies.

At the same time, though, there's competition from iSCSI vendors, who are peddling 10-Gbit/s access aggressively as a Fibre Channel alternative. For local connectivity in data centers, InfiniBand proponents are also banging the drum, and Cisco has thrown Fibre Channel over Ethernet into the ring. (See FCOE Not Routable, iSCSI Gang Talks Big, and FC vs iSCSI: Latest Round .)

While paying lip service to iSCSI and InfiniBand, Emulex relies mostly on Fibre Channel for OEM revenue. QLogic plays a wider field, competing with Broadcom in iSCSI HBAs and with Cisco, Mellanox, and Voltaire in the InfiniBand server card space.For now, it's unclear how these other technologies will compete against faster Fibre Channel. "There will be some natural encroachment of FC by 10GbE iSCSI and NAS IP-based storage. Likewise, longer term there will be more encroachment and cannibalization of FC by 10GbE FCoE," states Greg Schulz of the StorageIO Group in an email. Still, he thinks the era when FC becomes a "zombie technology" is far in the future.

Nonetheless, the availability of faster SAN connectivity at least widens the range of user choices. Exactly how and when users deploy it remains to be seen.

Mary Jander, Site Editor, Byte and Switch