Top Of The News - Storage:

Gadzoox Adds More 'Fibre' To Its Diet

Storage Area Network (SAN) player Gadzoox Networks has taken 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.

The new code is key to Gadzoox hold on the Fibre Channel fabric switches sector, which IDC expects to surpass $1 billion by 2003.

Developed as part of the Open SAN OS fabric services, the Virtual Switch Interface is designed to simplify iSCSI and FCIP product development. 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 Fiber 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.

The FabriCore Engines Open SAN OS can be used with the associated FabriCore Engines' Soft Core or a custom ASIC with multiple RTOS's or other devices.

The company said the FabriCore Engines technology suite can be broken out into three categories; FC Soft Cores, Open SAN OS, and FC ASSPs.

Pricing information is available on the company's Web site.