Agilent Releases 2 Gb/s Fibre Channel

Agilent Technologies Inc. announced volume availability of its two-gigabit-per-second (2 Gb/s) small-form-pluggable (SFP) fiber-optic transceiver for Fibre Channel storage area networks (SANs).

According to Agilent, the new transceiver is “hot-pluggable,” meaning it can be inserted or removed from a board without removing power. This benefit is critical to SAN switch environments that cannot afford system downtime for online transaction processing applications. Agilent customers now have the ability to add fiber-optic ports, replace fiber-optic transceivers, and scale their systems when needed without interrupting network services.

The HFBR-5720L SFP fiber-optic transceiver is shipping now, and is priced under $100 in low volume quantities. The company says the HFBR-5720L will also be available as an option with Agilent’s new host bus adapter cards HHBA-5218A (expected introduction planned for Q2 2001) and HHBA-5220A (expected introduction planned for Q3 2001).