The Fibre Channel Industry Association completed a Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) plugfest earlier this month at the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Lab, giving Fibre Channel vendors the chance to test interoperability.

The FCIA said the tests were the first among major vendors in a formal setting, and they were successful. The FCIA opened the plugfest to all Fibre Channel vendors, and participants included Absolute Analysis, Amphenol, Brocade, Cisco, Emulex, Finisar, HP, IBM, Intel, LSI, Mellanox Technologies, Molex, NetApp, QLogic and Spirent Communications.

These companies are gearing up their FCoE-related products for the coming months, and some end-user deployment of the technology is expected next year.

QLogic said its 8000 Series converged network adapters, which are commercially available, were able to interoperate with all of the other Fibre Channel and FCoE products in the plugfest. The adapters put data- and storage-networking traffic onto the same 10 Gigabit Ethernet pipe. To other hardware and software, that network looks like Fibre Channel.

FCoE is a method for transporting Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet. It promises to unite data networks and storage networks on high-speed Ethernet, using a single interface, a single switch and a single cable for all data-center networking needs. The move toward FCoE was brought up as a justification for Brocade's acquisition of Foundry Networks when it was announced in July. 

The FCIA is a nonprofit organization that describes itself as "the independent technology and marketing voice of the Fibre Channel industry." Members include manufacturers, system integrators, developers, vendors, industry professionals, and end users.

Jeff Caruso is site editor at Network World.