In discussing the new Spirent test, Brian Mason, its product manager for storage solutions, said the company had found "major scaleability concerns" with all of the SAN equipment it tested -- comments that incensed members of the FCIA. In a bizarre step last month, the FCIA issued a statement calling Spirent's a "misguided marketing attempt" and said the vendor had created an "artificial test scenario" that doesn't apparently serve any purpose except to generate sales for Spirent (see FCIA Blasts Spirent Test).
Incidentally, Agilent is a member of the FCIA, while Spirent is not.
We have to wonder: Will the FCIA similarly lambaste Agilent for daring to market a product designed to push Fibre Channel switches to the limit? Is the Agilent test any more or less of an "artificial test scenario" than the Spirent/Cisco test? FCIA representatives did not respond to requests for comment by press time. An Agilent spokeswoman said the product manager for the 1730B SAN tester was unavailable for an interview.
In other SAN testing equipment news today, Finisar Corp. (Nasdaq: FNSR) announced its Xgig Analyzer Version 1.5, which now supports full-duplex gigabit links (see Finisar Upgrades SAN Test Tool). Presumably, the FCIA -- which also counts Finisar as a member -- doesn't find fault with this test... yet.
Todd Spangler, US Editor, Byte and Switch
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