Gadzoox Networks today announced the addition of 3Gb/4Gb and 10Gb Fibre Channel (FC) Media Access Controller (MAC) soft cores to the Company’s recently announced FabriCore Engines technology suite. Gadzoox says they are offering the new high-speed FC MACs to fulfill the demand being driven by the convergence of the SAN and Local Area Network (LAN) in 10Gb products.
The 10Gb FC MAC is the primary FC engine for ASICs that enable the convergence of FC and Ethernet networks. Research conducted by Gadzoox indicates the first installations of 10Gb ready products will take place in the Data Center and will enable a 10Gb Ethernet LAN router or switch to include 10Gb FC ports for easy, simultaneous, high-speed communications with the SAN(s).
“The 10Gb space is beginning to heat up and those companies that want to get a jump on the next wave of storage networking and ensure they can compete are going to want to leverage our successful FabriCore Engines FC MACs,” said Steve Dalton, Gadzoox Networks’ President and CEO. “The growing storage industry has realized that proven FC technology is necessary to compete in the marketplace but they are also realizing that FC technology is not easy or cheap to develop. Gadzoox Networks is the only company to offer 1Gb/2Gb FC MACs and now the new high-speed FC MACs, which simplify and reduce development costs for our customers.”
According to Gadzoox, the FabriCore Engines 10Gb FC MAC offers key features such as, high-speed data rates, data path integrity checking and support for flexible industry standard interfaces. In addition, the 10Gb FC MAC supports the key FC-1 and FC-2 functions, link layer protocol, and framing and signaling, respectively.
While 10Gb speeds are on the horizon some storage customers, such as HBA, RAID controllers and Disk Drive manufactures are making the transition to 3Gb and 4Gb speeds now. To answer this demand Gadzoox say they are also offering a 3Gb/4Gb FC MAC for the next generation of HBAs, RAID controllers, disk drives, and other storage products.
“3Gb and 4Gb speeds have been overshadowed by discussions of 10Gb but our recent customer engagements have indicated that there is a need for the 3Gb/4Gb FC MAC,” continued Dalton. “Because Gadzoox Networks has such a strong FC development team we have been able to accommodate this demand very quickly and are offering our 3Gb/4Gb FC MACs now.”
Gadzoox says that the new FabriCore Engines FC MACs capitalize on Gadzoox’ seven years of FC development and expertise including nine patents, six patents pending and numerous other research and development accomplishments.