Sorrento Adds 8Gb FC Card

Sorrento Networks, provider of metro optical access solutions, is releasing an 8Gbit/second Fibre Channel card for its GigaMux 1600/3200, an optical transport system that supports a variety of WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) architectures.

GigaMux 3200, 3234, 3217 Platform

The new card enables high-bandwidth connectivity of SANs (storage area networks) between data centers and meets new bandwidth demands driven by cloud computing applications like storage virtualization.

"We’re seeing an insatiable demand for I/O availability between data centers that only 8 Gigabit Fibre Channel and 10 Gigabit Ethernet can satisfy," said Jim Nevelle, CEO of Sorrento Networks. "By offering an 8-gig Fibre Channel card at price comparable to a 4’gig Fibre Channel solution, we’re making it feasible for our customers to double their SAN connectivity horsepower without a major overhaul to their data centers."

By deploying 8Gbit/s Fibre Channel, IT managers can free up server interfaces that would otherwise be allocated for multiple 4Gbit/s or 2Gbit/s connections, thereby collapsing the number of servers needed to deliver the same processing power and connectivity. Fewer servers mean reductions in data center operations costs such as rental space and utilities.

"By using fewer servers to do the same job, data center managers can impact their bottom lines by drastically reducing operations costs such as rental space and utilities," added Nevelle. "They can also circumvent the need to build out facilities to handle the rapid adoption of high-bandwidth applications like storage in the cloud."

Additional features
of the Sorrento 8Gbit/s Fibre Channel card include:

• Complete wavelength availability for XFP-based version
• Client-side interfaces based on SFP+ form factor for maximum SAN switch compatibility
• Full 3R (reshaping, regeneration, retiming) capability for reliable transport of services
• Card is fully supported in all GigaMux 3234, 3217, and 1608 chassis
• CLI, Telnet, and SNMP support
• Easily managed via the command line interface, the WavCommand or through remote network management via WavBrowser or the Sorrento Management System (ZMS)

About the GigaMux 3200/1600 Platform
A protocol-independent design allows the GigaMux 3200/1600 platform to extend the traffic of Fibre Channel and Ethernet simultaneously and in their native formats. This flexibility enables users to add or upgrade bandwidth incrementally based on traffic requirements, as well as to achieve high-bandwidth links among their distributed data centers, storage servers and data storage devices.

Availability
The Sorrento 8Gbit/s Fibre Channel card (model OCM2-8G) is now available worldwide.