Comdex: Interphase, Seagate Demo 2 Gbps Fibre Channel

Providing an advanced look at the future of storage area networks (SANs) for the estimated 200,000 networking professionals at the Comdex tradeshow this week, Interphase Corp. (Dallas) and Seagate Technology (Scotts Valley, CA) are jointly demonstrating 2 Gbps Fibre Channel. The demonstration is based around Seagate's Cheetah 36LP Fibre Channel disk drives and Interphase PowerSAN host adapters running in a Sun Microsystems (Palo Alto, CA) Solaris environment.

A key part of the Interphase/Seagate demonstration, PowerSAN 64-bit PCI Fibre Channel adapters are designed for servers and enterprise computing systems.

With the emergence of SAN architectures fostering a surge in data capacity within the enterprise, 2 Gbps Fibre Channel potentially provides a two-fold increase in throughput. Intended for enterprise-class applications, the Interphase 64-bit PowerSAN adapters include other features important for enterprise SAN environments such as simultaneous support for both SCSI and IP protocol traffic, multi-gigabit connectivity options, and Java-based host bus adapter SAN management.

Specializing in high-end devices for corporate computer networks, Seagate Technology is the world's leading independent maker of storage drives for computers. Seagate sells its products mainly to manufacturers with Compaq Computer (Houston, TX) accounting for 13% of nearly $7 billion in sales last year. Seagate Technology and also develops business intelligence software through subsidiary Seagate Software. Interphase Corp. makes network and mass storage products for applications such as work groups, graphic workstations, and medical imaging. The company's networking devices account for nearly 75% of sales annual sales, pegged at $68.8 million in 1998.