Mount Laurel, New Jersey-based General Signal Networks Inc has announced a technology sharing agreement with Sunnyvale, California-based GigaLabs Inc to provide what it describes as the industry’s first ESCON-to-gigabit Ethernet high-speed mainframe- to-server link. The mainframe-to-server connectivity capability is available to connect mainframes to Digital Alpha or Intel- based Windows NT servers. GSN says it will be able to announce support for other Unix platforms in July. Link/9000 ESCON is a PCI-compatible interface card capable of connecting to GigaLabs’ GigaStar 3000/S Enterprise, GigaStar 3000 Backbone, or GigaStar 100 Workgroup switches via Microsoft SNA Server. GSN claims Link/9000 communicates at ESCON channel speeds with throughput of up to 17 megabytes per second. The combination of Link/9000 from GSN and GigaLabs’ switches will provide a high-performance, flexible server to mainframe solution for 10/100/1000 Ethernet LANs, says Michael Ruggieri, vice president of strategic marketing for General Signal. General Signal Networks, a General Signal Corp company, also has an Open Channel 9000 connector, said to enable bulk data transfer between IBM Corp ESCON-enabled mainframes and SCSI storage subsystems on Sun Microsystems Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co and Tandem Computers Inc, without the need for SNA/VTAM or TCP/IP. According to the company’s director of open systems technology Tom Foth, Open Channel 9000 makes the Hewlett- Packard or Sun box look to the network like a channel-connected mainframe, whereas other vendors’ approaches make the mainframe look like a node. GigaLabs was founded in 1988 as Input/Output Systems, introducing its Gigabit Ethernet switch family, GigaStar, in September 1996 (CI No 3,001). Pricing is to be announced.
