ANSI INCITS T11.2 Committee Ratifies Standard for 16GFC
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SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 28, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Fibre Channel
Industry Association (FCIA) today announced the completion of the 16GFC
standard which passed a final milestone within the ANSI T11 Technical
Committee. With the approved 16GFC standard, the Fibre Channel industry
continues to help customers preserve their 4GFC and 8GFC infrastructure
investments and avoid costly "forklift" replacements.

The vote supports the ANSI INCITS T11 Technical Committee development
of the 16GFC electrical copper and optical interfaces in its FC-PI-5
standard and ensures that Fibre Channel continues to provide the
highest performance available for storage interconnects.

With 16GFC, users will experience twice the bandwidth of 8GFC --
doubling savings in price/performance, power and port density. 16GFC is
estimated to decrease power consumption by at least 25% over 8GFC
technology. Transparently, without user intervention, 16GFC is
auto-negotiated backward compatibly to 8GFC and 4GFC, ensuring that the
user need not make a forklift remove and replace of their 4GFC or 8GFC
Fibre Channel SAN to integrate individual 16GFC products at the pace of
their own choosing. 16GFC provides a natural value migration from 8GFC
and ensures the end user full confidence that 8GFC purchases made today
are preserved investments for tomorrow. In addition, 16GFC reduces the
number of links required to transfer large amounts of bandwidth in SANs
while improving management capabilities by reducing the number of
cables, ports and devices required to accomplish the same job.

"Protecting investments is a key element of technology planning for
both IT manufacturers and their customers, as it allows them to make
better decisions about current and future technologies," said Skip
Jones, FCIA Chairman. "With 16GFC, Fibre Channel's future is ensured by
meeting today's and future performance demands while preserving ongoing
investments that users make in the technology. 16GFC provides all the
benefits of full backward compatibility to the large, rapidly growing
Fibre Channel installed base and will deliver the most cost-effective,
highest performance for today's demanding SAN applications."

16GFC user benefits:


  --  About 40% faster than 10G Ethernet SANs
  --  2x faster than 8GFC
  --  Improved price/performance
  --  Lower power
  --  Backward compatibility
  --  Flexible configurability
  --  60% to 2X improved SAN IO density
  --  60% to 2X increased number of Virtual Machine IO channels per port
  --  Saves PCIe slots for other uses




Today, FCIA member companies are building products based on 16GFC
technology and will be available in the market in 2011. Additional
information on the standardization efforts of 16GFC is available at the
ANSI T11 website: www.t11.org.

About FCIA

The Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) is a non-profit
international organization whose sole purpose is to act as the
independent technology and marketing voice of the Fibre Channel
industry. We are committed to helping member organizations promote and
position Fibre Channel, and to providing a focal point for Fibre
Channel information, standards advocacy, and education.

FCIA members include manufacturers, system integrators, developers,
vendors, industry professionals, and end users. Our member-led working
groups and committees focus on creating and championing the Fibre
Channel technology roadmaps, targeting applications that include data
storage, video, networking, and storage area network (SAN) management.
For more info, go to http://www.fibrechannel.org


CONTACT: FCIA
         Media Contact:
         Sonal Dave
         (949)533-1655
         sonal@cox.net