Accredited Standards Committee *	X3, Information Technology

NEWS RELEASE

Doc. No.:	PR/96-091
Reply to:	Deborah J. Donovan at ddonovan@itic.nw.dc.us 


X3 Announces the Approval of Project Proposal for a Technical Report, Fibre Channel Fabric Loop Attachment (FC-FLA) Technical Report
Washington D.C., November 1996 -- Accredited Standards Committee X3, Information Technology announces approval of this new project being developed within Technical Committee, X3T11, Device Level Interface. The reference number for this project is 1235-DT. This project proposal recommends the development of a Fibre Channel Fabric Loop Attachment Technical Report which will contain the definition of a subset of existing Fibre Channel definitions, and a more extensive subset than that being created in the FC-PLDA project. This new subset will be oriented towards the following: a) The ability to implement peripheral and network devices which can be both attached directly to a loop and accessed by devices connected to a Fabric b) The ability to interconnect a Loop and a Fabric in a cost-effective manner with optimal performance. c) The ability to interconnect PLDA devices and FLA devices. d) The ability to support efficient communication between devices attached to different loops via the Fabric. e) The ability to create Fibre Channel configurations of redundant loops and fabric components. f) The ability to implement name service to facilitate the identification of the devices connected to the Fabric. g) The ability to implement management facilities which allow for managing loop-attached devices by devices not on that same loop. These management functions should be broad enough to manage loop-attached and fabric-attached devices. These functions will be in compliance to the definitions in FC-GS and FC-GS-2 h) The ability to facilitate the acceleration of time to market for fabric attached loop topologies by minimizing the changes to the 1st generation FC products. Inquiries regarding this project and other Fibre Channel and HIPPI projects should be sent to the Chairman of X3T11, Mr. Roger Cummings, Distributed Processing Technology, 140 Candace Dr., Maitland, FL 32751. Email: cummings_roger@dpt.com. The next meeting of X3T11 is December 2-6, 1996 in the Bloomington, MN. All organizations and individuals who are materially or directly affected are invited to participate. An initial call for possible patents and other pertinent issues (copyrights, trademarks) is now being issued. Please submit information on these issues to the X3 Secretariat at 1250 Eye Street NW, Suite 200, Washington DC 20005. Email: x3sec@itic.nw.dc.us FAX: (202) 638-4922.


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