Four-Gig HBAs on Parade

Among the 4-Gbit/s Fibre Channel demonstrations at the Storage Networking World trade show in Phoenix next week will be host bus adapters (HBAs) -- largely missing from 4-Gbit/s scenarios up to now.

Faster Fibre Channel looks like it will be a theme at the show, with switches from a range of players set for display (more on that in a minute). But without HBAs, the switches are useless. So the addition of new HBAs from ATTO Technology Inc. and LSI Logic Corp. (NYSE: LSI), as well as a combination of new and previously announced models from Emulex Corp. (NYSE: ELX) and QLogic Corp. (Nasdaq: QLGC), could provide inspiration.

Here's a rundown:

Conformance to PCI Express, the follow-on to today's widespread parallel PCI-X bus, is a significant feature of these new adapters for servers and storage gear. Where all devices on a parallel PCI-X bus share bandwidth, serially architected PCI Express allocates a specific amount of bandwidth per device. That improves its scaleability, quality-of-service potential, and latency -- making it a better choice for storage than PCI-X, analysts say.

Other 4-Gbit/s FC announcements are in the offing, including controllers from Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A), ATTO, and Engenio Information Technologies Inc. (see Agilent to Demo 4-Gbit/s FC Controller).On the system side, Storage Technology Corp. (StorageTek) (NYSE: STK) may show the FLX380 SAN system built around the 6998 controller from Engenio and the 4-Gbit/s SilkWorm 4100 switch from Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD). StorageTek has yet to qualify any 4-Gbit/s HBAs for its system, however.

The Engenio controller is the same that Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) (NYSE: SGI) uses for its InfiniteStorage TP9700l high-performance computing system announced in February (see SGI Targets First in 4-Gig). IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) also uses the Engenio controllers for its DS4000 midrange SANs, but has yet to announce a 4-Gbit/s system.

The StorageTek FLX380 includes dual-active controllers and eight 4-Gbit/s host connections. It supports up to 224 Fibre Channel or SATA drives. It will cost around $100,000 for a base system with less than 1 TByte of capacity.

A couple of 4-Gbit/s products may not surface at this show. One is a 4-Gbit/s product from Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), which is rumored to be working on a product with QLogic for possible release this fall (see Cisco & QLogic: Headed for Huddle).

Another missing link is a 4-Gbit/s FC director.

McData Corp. (Nasdaq: MCDTA) has announced plans to have a 4-Gbit/s director add-on to its i10K director, but that won't be available, spokespeople say, until early 2006. Meanwhile, McData will send its 4-Gbit/s Sphereon switches for OEM qualification next week and will demonstrate them at SNW. Steve Scully, McDatas director of Sphereon product management, says he expects those switches to ship in the second half of the year.The 4-Gbit/s Sphereon is part of McData’s long-hyped 2005 product launch, but Brocade has already beaten it to the punch by getting its 4-Gbit/s switch qualified by EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), IBM, and StorageTek (see Global Crossing Names Execs, HDS Resells Brocade Switch, and IBM Offers 4-Gig SAN Switch. Scully downplays Brocade’s lead, claiming the overall 4-Gbit/s market isn’t quite ready yet. “There’s not a lot of 4-gig stuff to hook up to,” he says.

That could change after next week, when HBAs help bring next-gen Fibre Channel a step closer to reality.

— Mary Jander, Site Editor, and Dave Raffo, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch