NCITS Approves Fibre Channel Switch Fabric Standard

NCITS Approves Fibre Channel Switch Fabric Standard

Washington, DC, December 3, 2001 - The Executive Board of the National Committee for Information Technology Standards (NCITS) has approved the Fibre Channel Switch Fabric-2 Standard (NCITS 355). The new Standard defines the protocols and conventions for Fibre Channel switches from multiple vendors to interoperate.

Kate McMillan, Director of the NCITS Secretariat, explained, "NCITS 355 covers functions such as path selection and routing event notification as well as the data services that the devices attached to the fabric need in order to function. That is, it defines distributed services that are required for a Fibre Channel fabric."

Describing the importance of the Standard to users and industry, Craig W. Carlson, Chair of Task Group T11.3 which oversaw the development of the FC-SW-2 Standard , noted that "it allows customers to protect their investment by choosing the best of class vendor for their specific applications as they grow their fabrics. It's a big step for the Fibre Channel industry; it provides a key component for Fibre Channel interoperability." Carlson is a System Architect at QLogic Corporation.

About NCITS
The National Committee for Information Technology Standards (NCITS) is the forum of choice for information technology developers, producers and users for the creation and maintenance of formal de jure IT standards. NCITS is accredited by, and operates under rules approved by, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). These rules are designed to ensure that voluntary standards are developed by the consensus of directly and materially affected interests. The NCITS web site is www.ncits.org and the address is NCITS Secretariat, Information Technology Industry Council, 1250 Eye St. NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20005.

About QLogic (www.qlogic.com)
QLogic Corporation (Nasdaq:QLGC) simplifies the process of networking storage for OEMs, resellers and system integrators with the only end-to-end infrastructure in the industry, consisting of award-winning controller chips, host bus adapters, network switches and management software to move data from the storage device through the fabric to the server. QLogic designs and produces solutions based on all storage network technologies including SCSI, iSCSI InfiniBand and Fibre Channel. A member of the S&P 500 Index, QLogic was recently ranked number 25 on Forbes' Best 200 Small Companies and number 20 on Fortune's 100 Fastest Growing Companies.