Accredited Standards Committee*	X3, Information Technology

NEWS RELEASE
Doc. No.:	PR/95-0071
Reply to:	Lynn Barra		(lbarra@itic.nw.dc.us)

X3 Announces the Approval of a New Project for Fibre Channel 
Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL-2)

Washington D.C., July 1995 -- Accredited Standards Committee X3, 
Information Technology is announcing the approval of a new project 
being developed within X3T11, Device Level Interface.

This project recommends the development of a second generation
Arbitrated Loop definition for Fibre Channel and will be fully backwards compatible with the definition contained in FC-AL (X3.272:199x). Significant new technologies and functions to be included are:

a) The definition of additional topologies and performance consideration
made possible by the additional physical variants, the multiple Node Port
services (hunt groups, multicast etc.) and the fractional bandwidth services
being defined by FC-PH-2.

b) The definition of additional services to allow multiple Node Ports to
communicate, such as additional forms of multicast, which are specifically
optimized for arbitrated loop topologies.

c) The definition of additional services which support the concepts of fine-
grained or time-synchronized parallel storage and processing applications
being based upon arbitrated loop structures.

Inquiries should be sent to the Chairman of X3T11, Mr. Roger Cummings, 
Storage Technology Inc., 2270 South 88th Street, Louisville, CO  80028-
0211, roger_cummings@stortek.com.

An initial call for patents and pertinent issues (copyrights, trademarks) is 
now being issued.  Please submit information on these issues to the X3 
Secretariat at the address below.

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X3 Secretariat, 1250 Eye Street NW, Suite 200, Washington DC  20005
Email: x3sec@itic.nw.dc.us     FAX:  (202)638-4922
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