According to the Fiber Channel Association, Fiber Channel technology will flourish this year with companies investing in development of the technology as the demands for high-speed connections increase. Industry watchers believe that Fiber Channel will become more prominent by the year 2000 as network storage demands change and grow. Fiber Channel, a one Gigabit- per-second data transfer interface technology, became an American National Standards Institute standard in 1993, although until recently products using the technology have not been that readily available. However, the Fiber Channel Association says that will change this year. The Association was established at the beginning of 1993 in a bid to encourage the adoption of Fiber Channel technology and it now has over 120 worldwide members. The association’s main objective is to provide a support structure for Fiber Channel users, developers and manufacturers as Gigabit Fiber Channel storage and network products become more prominent. In 1996 some 40 companies joined the association including Digital Equipment Corp, Sun Microsystems Inc, Unisys Corp, LSI Logic Corp and Texas Instruments Inc. When Fiber Channel first appeared it was used in enterprise networking and the RAID storage markets. However, as time progresses, On-Line Transaction Processing servers and video and graphics networks are emerging as other common markets. The Association, based in Austin, Texas believes that 1997 will see wide- scale availability of Gigabit Fiber Channel products that will aid organizations in storage and networking areas.
