FibreAlliance submits storage standards agreement

Fenella Quinn, reporter

Fibre channel vendors gained momentum in their bid to control the future of Storage Area Networks (SAN) after the FibreAlliance welcomed eight new members this week. Since its formation a year ago, the 40-strong FibreAlliance has worked to establish a blueprint for ensuring consistent interoperability of SAN device management software tools. The Alliance has submitted the blueprint to the Internet engineering Task Force (IETF) for standardisation. Don Swatik, VP of product management at Alliance sponsors, the EMC Corporation, made the announcement at the CeBIT 2000 IT trade fair in Hanover this week. He pointed out that as volumes of data rapidly increase globally, the need to manage it effectively becomes ever more challenging. The technology being developed now by
members of the FibreAlliance, he said, is making it simpler and increasingly effective for users to design, deploy and manage enterprise SANs.