Fibre Channel isn't dead

IDC predicts 80% market share for Fibre Channel

Developments of the week in storage

Last week, I had a briefing with executives from the Fibre Channel Industry Association and they presented their Fibre Channel roadmap.

Here is what they had to say.

According to a study from IDC entitled “External Controller-Based Disk Storage By Host Interface Revenue,” Fibre Channel will lead other host interfaces by as much as six times – Fibre Channel will have more than 80% market share by 2010 compared to iSCSI with 14%.

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Last week, I had a briefing with executives from the Fibre Channel Industry Association and they presented their Fibre Channel roadmap.

Here is what they had to say.

According to a study from IDC entitled “External Controller-Based Disk Storage By Host Interface Revenue,” Fibre Channel will lead other host interfaces by as much as six times – Fibre Channel will have more than 80% market share by 2010 compared to iSCSI with 14%.

External controller-based revenue by hard disk drive interface shows that Fibre Channel will decrease by a small amount, while Serial Attached SCSI will grow significantly until 2010. Fibre Channel will still dominate by two times over Serial ATA and Serial Attached SCSI.

Fibre Channel specifies three connection types: FC-Base2, FC-Base10 and FC-BaseT. All speeds of Fibre Channel – 1, 2 and 4 – are backward compatible for two previous generations. FC-Base2 is the predominant Fibre Channel interconnect used for fabric edge implementations and interswitch links. FC-Base10 is used for interswitch links and FC-BaseT is used to plug Fibre Channel into Ethernet installations. FC-BaseT will use Cat 5, 5e or 6 cables and RJ-45 connectors.

As for the speeds and feeds of Fibre Channel, users will see 8Gbps Fibre Channel in 2008 and 16Gbps Fibre Channel in 2011. The FCIA even has plans for 128Gbps Fibre Channel as far out as 2020.

We should see FC-BaseT – the cabling used in Ethernet infrastructures – sometime this year in all speeds of Fibre Channel.

Storage in the news:

* SANRAD, an iSCSI vendor, introduced a midrange switch that connects host computers to Fibre Channel storage-area networks via iSCSI. The V-Switch 3400 starts at $26,000.

* Mimosa Systems announced that it has raised $17 million in Series C financing from the Mayfield Fund, Clearstone Venture Partners, August Capital and Jafco Ventures. The company will use the additional money to grow its sales and marketing activities.

Read more about data center in Network World's Data Center section.

Deni Connor is principal analyst for Storage Strategies NOW and host of both the Masters of Storage and Masters of Servers Solution Centers.