SANcastle(TM) Technologies this week announced general availability of its first product, the GFS-8(TM).
Claiming it is the world’s first global fabric switch for high performance storage networks, the company said the GFS-8 translates IP protocols for both Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and Fibre Channel (FC).
“Customers are looking for a broader solution to their infrastructure challenges than just a point-to-point product that some vendors have developed,” said Mitchell Levy, SANcastle’s co-founder and executive vice president of Worldwide Sales. “With the GFS-8, users finally have a real choice in designing network infrastructures. By enabling seamless, multi-protocol access to both GbE and Fibre Channel networks, users can really exploit all elements of existing infrastructurescomputer, storage, and network.”
“Many companies are developing or proposing Fibre Channel over Internet Protocol (IP) tunneling or encapsulation products, but SANcastle took a long-term position and developed a technology that meets today’s demands and tomorrow’s expectations,” said SANcastle’s president and CEO, Dave Davenport. “The GFS-8 is a protocol agnostic, full-function switch that truly integrates FC and GbE. And because it is protocol agnostic, it will support iSCSI and InfiniBand(TM) when these protocols are standardized.”
According to SANcastle, GFS-8 passed extensive testing at several beta sites and met or exceeded all trial expectations. The switch is available and priced between $32,000 and $38,000 depending on port configuration. It can be configured with 1, 2 or 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports and the remaining ports Fibre Channel.