NCITS Announces the Public Comment Period for NCITS 321:199x, Fibre Channel - Switch Fabric (FC-SW)

NCITS (National Committee for Information Technology Standards)

NEWS RELEASE

Doc. No.: PR/98-004
Reply to: Deborah J. Donovan at ddonovan@itic.nw.dc.us

Washington D.C., January 1998 - NCITS (National Committee for Information Technology Standards) is announcing the public comment period for NCITS 321:199x. Development of this draft standard is being done in Technical Committee T11, I/O Interface - Device Level.

The public review extends from January 16, 1998 to March 17, 1998.

This American National Standard for FC-SW specifies tools and algorithms for interconnection and ini-tialization of Fibre Channel switches to create a multi-switch Fibre Channel Fabric. This Standard de-fines an E_Port ("Expansion Port") that operates in a manner similar to an N_Port and F_Port, as defined in ANSI X3.230 FC- PH, with additional functionality provided for interconnecting switches.

This Standard also defines how ports that are capable of being an E_Port, F_Port, and/or FL_Port may discover and self-configure for their appropriate operating mode. Once a port establishes that it is con-nected to another switch and is operating as an E_Port, an address assignment algorithm is executed to allocate port addresses throughout the Fabric.

This Standard does not define credit models and management between E_Ports for the various Class-es of Service other than Class F. Broadcast and multicast services are not defined. E_Ports conform-ing to this Standard support Class F, and also Class 1, Class 2, and/or Class 3; support for other Classes of Service are not defined by this Standard. The method by which routing of frames is estab-lished and effected is not described.

Submit all comments to: NCITS Secretariat, Attn.: Deborah J. Donovan, 1250 Eye Street, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20005, Email: ddonovan@itic.nw.dc.us. Send a copy to: ANSI, Attn.: BSR Center, 11 West 42nd St., New York, NY 10036 (wluk@ansi.org).

A call for possible patents and pertinent issues (copyrights, trademarks) is also being issued. Please submit information on these issues to the NCITS Secretariat at 1250 Eye Street NW, Suite 200, Washington DC 20005. Email: NCITS @itic.nw.dc.us

Copies of NCITS 321:199x can be purchased from Global Engineering Documents, 15 Inverness Way East, Englewood, CO 80112-5704.
1-800-854-7179 or 303-792-2181.