Agilent Technologies Announces Loop Switch for 4 Gb Fibre Channel Disk Storage Arrays.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers PALO ALTO Palo Alto, city, California Palo Alto (păl`ō ăl`tō), city (1990 pop. 55,900), Santa Clara co., W Calif.; inc. 1894. Although primarily residential, Palo Alto has aerospace, electronics, and advanced research industries. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 29, 2004 Highly Integrated IC Provides Advanced Performance and Intelligence, Reduces Storage System Problem Determination Time and Maintenance Costs Agilent Technologies This article needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. Inc. (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :A) today introduced a highly integrated 4 Gb/s loop switch IC that will replace older port bypass circuits and use intelligent port management features to reduce system costs and downtime. Implementing Agilent's Fibre Channel arbitrated loop (FC-AL (Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop) See Fibre Channel. FC-AL - Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop. ) switch helps storage array manufacturers meet today's most critical storage-area network (SAN) requirements: performance, reliability, availability and serviceability Reliability, Availability and Serviceability is a computer hardware engineering term. It originated from IBM to advertise the robustness of their mainframe computers. The concept is often known by the acronym RAS. . These requirements are necessary to keep up with today's update-intensive online transaction database applications used in the airline, insurance and financial industries. The Agilent HDMP-0540 loop switch is designed to connect disk drives in a JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) A group of hard disks in a computer that are not set up as any type of RAID configuration. They are just a bunch of disks. JBOD - Just a Bunch Of Disks (just a bunch of disks See JBOD. (jargon, storage) Just a Bunch Of Disks - (JBOD, or "Just a Bunch of Drives") A storage subsystems using multiple independent disk drives, as opposed to one form of RAID or another. ) configuration using FC-AL topology. It is part of the industry's broadest solution set for 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel, including fiber-optic transceivers, physical layer ICs, board-level solutions and test equipment. Agilent is also making a 2 Gb/s loop switch available with similar features. These loop switch ICs provide 22 ports of connectivity and can be cascaded to control the FC-AL maximum of 126 disk drives per loop. "The robust port diagnostic and management features of our loop switch ICs reduce the time needed to resolve storage array problems and lower the cost of storage ownership," said Erik Ottem, marketing director of Agilent's Input/Output Solutions Division. "These new devices fit in the same storage subsystem applications as our new 4 Gb Tachyon tachyon (tăk`ēŏn'), hypothetical elementary particle that travels only at speeds exceeding that of light. According to the theory of relativity, the speed of light is the limiting velocity for all ordinary material particles. DX4+ Fibre Channel controller, providing ease of integration for our storage networking customers with the best of storage performance and management." The HDMP-0540, from Agilent's Semiconductor Products Group, takes FC-AL connections from the host and connects them through a crossbar switching core to connect multiple storage devices to multiple initiators or hosts. The single-chip device features significantly lower power consumption versus multiple discrete PBCs, thus reducing overall system design, implementation and maintenance costs. The Agilent loop switch also reduces costs by eliminating the need for an external processor to achieve Fibre Channel disk drive connectivity. It provides a generic two-wire interface for configuration and port management, and its port diagnostic features allow storage systems to monitor and debug To correct a problem in hardware or software. Debugging software means locating the errors in the source code (the program logic). Debugging hardware means finding errors in the circuit design (logical circuits) or in the physical interconnections of the circuits. ports independently. The loop switch complies with FC-AL and FC-AL2 (second-generation) standards and has field upgradeable EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM) A rewritable memory chip that holds its content without power. Although EEPROMs spawned flash memory, EEPROMs are byte addressable at the write level, whereas flash chips must erase a block of bytes before rewriting. capabilities for system configuration modifications. The loop switch has 22 full-duplex ports, each configurable to be host, device or cascade capable, and each port includes an integrated serializer/deserializer (SerDes). It supports 1.0625 Gb/s, 2.125 Gb/s and 4.25 Gb/s FC-AL and FC-AL2 operation, is capable of multiple cascading links per switch for complex configurations, and provides automatic load balancing using cascaded ports for maximum system performance. The loop switch incorporates data retiming to ensure jitter A flicker or fluctuation in a transmission signal or display image. The term is used in several ways, but it always refers to some offset of time and space from the norm. For example, in a network transmission, jitter would be a bit arriving either ahead or behind a standard clock cycle compliance for consistent performance, and provides comprehensive quality of service information from each port for fault isolation and high availability and easy serviceability. U.S. Pricing and Availability Samples of the 4 Gb/s HDMP-0540 loop switch are planned to be available for selected customers in June 2004. Production volumes will be available by the third quarter of 2004. The 2 Gb/s HDMP-0520 loop switch is expected to be available through Agilent's direct sales channel and worldwide distribution partners in June 2004. Pricing is available upon request. Agilent 4 Gb Fibre Channel Solutions Agilent is a leading supplier of 4 Gb Fibre Channel component, board and test solutions. No other vendor offers protocol, physical layer, and fiber-optic components combined with leading-edge signal and protocol testing. More than half of all storage-networked arrays use Agilent components. For more information, visit www.agilent.com/view/storage. About Agilent Technologies Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) is a global technology leader in communications, electronics, life sciences and chemical analysis. The company's 28,000 employees serve customers in more than 110 countries. Agilent had net revenue of $6.1 billion in fiscal year 2003. Information about Agilent is available on the Web at www.agilent.com. NOTE TO EDITORS: Please direct reader inquiries to Agilent Semiconductor Products Group at 800-235-0312, or e-mail us at semiconductorsupport@agilent.com. Further technology, corporate citizenship Corporate Citizenship The extent to which businesses are socially responsible in meeting legal, ethical and economic responsibilities placed on them by shareholders. The aim it to create higher standards of living and quality of life in the community in which it operates, while and executive news is available on the Agilent news site at www.agilent.com/go/news. |
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