JNI(R) Corporation today announced a new line of Fibre Channel host bus adapters featuring the CompactPCI (CPCI) interface.
According JNI, the new 2 Gb Ready(TM) FibreStar(R) FCC2-6460 Fibre Channel-to-CPCI host bus adapter (HBA) is based on JNI’s new Emerald(TM) IV Fibre Channel controller. Scheduled to be Available in the third quarter of this year, the HBA will initially run on Sun Microsystems Solaris platforms. Subsequent driver releases will include Windows NT and Windows 2000, Hewlett Packard HP-UX, IBM AIX, Novell NetWare and Red Hat Linux.
“As the largest independent manufacturer of Fibre Channel host bus adapters for the Solaris market, JNI intends to offer the broadest open systems, best-of-breed support to Solaris customers now and in the future,” said Neal Waddington, president and CEO of JNI Corporation. “With the introduction of the new Sun Fire Midframe servers with CompactPCI, JNI’s offering of a CPCI storage adapter extends our commitment to the Solaris market.”
JNI says the FCC2-6460 will deliver full switched fabric support, as well as arbitrated loop and point-to-point protocol support. In addition, the CPCI HBA will include a host of enterprise-level features, including IP and SCSI protocols, FC-Tape support, and 1 or 2 Gb auto rate negotiation. This last, “on demand” feature should enable a smooth and automatic migration path to 2 Gb-enabled storage networks by operating in 1 Gb, 2 Gb or mixed 1 Gb and 2 Gb Fibre Channel environments.
Widespread deployment of 2 Gb Fibre Channel products is expected in the second half of this year. JNI also says that pricing will be competitive with existing dual-port 1 Gb Fibre Channel host bus adapters, with costs varying depending on configuration and quantity.
