The Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) today released its second round of conformance test definitions and associated test suites supporting its SANmark(TM) Qualified Program.
According to FCIA the SANmark open standards compliance program, proactively resolves key protocol and multi-vendor integration challenges, promoting mainstream compatibility and consistency across heterogeneous Fibre Channel-based Storage Area Networks (SANs).
FCIA says SANmark’s value to the industry is based upon the resolution of compatibility issues for existing products as well as reducing time to market for new products by significantly reducing the time required to interpret, implement and validate standards. Developers now have access to “open source code” for all tests, providing the ability to complete their testing in-house and solve conformance challenges before products are brought to market.
Today’s announcement enhances the SANmark Program with three new Standards Conformance Documents (SCD), addressing Fabric Attach Device Conformance, Inter-Switch Link (E_Port) Conformance and Fabric Loop (FL_Port) Conformance. In the last nine months, the SANmark Program established and documented a formal process to develop SCDs and associated test suites, specifically addressing roles and responsibilities, critical assumptions in an open industry review and approval process. The first SANmark conformance suite, Arbitrated Loop Conformance, was introduced to the industry in October 2000.
The SANmark Program acts as the proactive catalyst to directly seek out and resolve interoperability and compatibility issues. At this time, additional conformance test definitions and test suites are in development, addressing fabric services and other critical storage networking characteristics. More information on the SANmark trademark administration program, interoperability plugfest events, education, training and overall industry promotion are available upon request. Please contact the FCIA in order to satisfy all of your business critical SANmark needs.
