T11 is responsible for the High-Performance Parallel Interface (HIPPI) and Fibre Channel (FC) families of standards in the Device Level Interface arena. T11 assumed the program of work of Task Group X3T9.3 in February 1994, and is co-TAG to ISO/IEC/JTC 1/SC 25/WG 4 along with T10 & T12, the other former X3T9 Task Groups.
2001-2002 has been a period of transition, both within the committee and in the industry as a whole. While the previous emphasis on user requirements and interoperability has continued, increased emphasis on system level issues has necessitated the creation of a new Task Group, T11.5, to address those issues. Projects assigned to T11.5 include the new management related projects FC-HBA, MIB-FA, and FC-SWAPI. At the same time, the completion of the work products associated with the HIPPI standards led to the termination of the T11.1 Task Group that had developed those standards. The mature standards developed by T11.1 are now managed by T11.
There has been significant emphasis on extending and refining the capabilities of Fibre Channel systems. Those efforts applied to interoperability include a new project (FC-MI-2) to complement the existing FC-DA project. Those efforts applied to Fibre Channel security include the new project FC-SP. Those efforts applied to extending the knowledge about the behavior and modeling of Fibre Channel links resulted in the new project FC-SM. As the Fibre Channel industry has extended its capabilities to new protocol spaces, a study project for FC-AE-2 was created and a new revision (FC-SB-3) of the FC-SB-2 standard was created. As a result of these activities, the total program of work of T11 during the period of this annual report is as follows:
T11 work continues to be recognized and supported by the industry. Conformance with the standards being developed has become important to the designers and implementers of Fibre Channel products. T11 had 62 member organizations in October of 2002, a decrease from 68 in July 2001. Part of this decrease reflects effects of the economy that have refocused some companies to other technologies and prevented others from attending the meetings as they would have liked. Another part of the decrease reflects the merging of member organizations. An additional 12 organizations participate in the T11 Task Groups.
Five standards have been reaffirmed. The remaining two IPI standards were withdrawn because there is no further development involving those standards. Similarly, one HIPPI standard was withdrawn.
The following is the outline of the task groups under T11 and their project allocation:
The technical committee has taken on the responsibility for the HIPPI documents still in process, including HIPPI-6400-OPT. It has also taken the primary responsibility for those documents that cross several areas of expertise, allocating individual portions of the responsibility to the task group with the necessary expertise. At present, 10 GFC is the only standard being developed by T11 that has that characteristic.
This task group, which developed the HIPPI standards projects, terminated in December of 2001. At the recommendation of the group, the ST-API project was withdrawn and the remaining HIPPI projects were turned over to T11 for forwarding through INCITS.
The projects currently allocated to this task group include: FC-MJSQ, FC-PI-2, FCSM, and FC-PI.
The projects currently allocated to this task group include: FC-AE, FC-AE-2 Study Group, FC-FS, FC-GS-4, FC-MI, FC-SW-3, FC-AV, FC-BB-2, FC-SB-2, FC-SW-2, FC-VI, FC-MI-2, FC-DA, and FC-SB-3
The projects currently allocated to this group include: FC-HBA, FC-SWAPI, and MIB-FA.
The committee has forwarded 6 new project proposals this year, one associated with security, one associated with Single Byte Command Code Sets, one associated with interoperability, and three associated with management. This is a notable change from previous years' activities that focused on fundamental hardware connectivity and fabric issues.
The committee has completed 7 documents to the stage that allowed them to be forwarded to INCITS for public review and approval. This represents thousands of hours of work by volunteer officers, editors, and contributors.
Over 625 documents and presentations have been prepared supporting the technical and administrative activities of the committee.
The most significant challenge this year has been associated with the increased intensity of effort dedicated toward further improvements in the management of Fibre Channel networks and the integration of those management procedures into existing management applications. Much of this work was started in trade organizations and consortia outside the T11 activities, but has been brought into T11 for final standardization as the documents have begun to approach technical completeness. Because of this and the expectation that there are other management standardization activities required, T11 has created TG T11.5, providing a home for those activities. The scope of that activity has specifically included management interfaces and protocols that can manage interface technologies included in the T10 and T11 standards efforts, as well as interface technologies developed by other organizations. The hope is that the existence of this home for such activities will encourage the use of T11.5 by trade organizations and consortia interested in management standards.
The second significant challenge this year has been the growing recognition that T11 products can be improved significantly by including some security capabilities. First a study group and later a formal project, the security activities are now well on their way to producing a standard, FC-SP. These activities have already produced requirements on other T11 standards and show the potential for significantly improving Fibre Channel products.
The Quality of Service (QoS) study group has presented its complete work. The final approval for that work to be included in the appropriate standards documents has not yet been given. If it is not included in this set of standards, it will probably be postponed for inclusion in the next generation of standards. QoS has proven a remarkably intractable challenge in all technologies because of its costs of implementation, possible management complexity, and difficult to quantize performance improvements.
Many of the major challenges for the next twelve months will be associated with the economy.
The economy is going to decrease the pool of volunteers available for standards efforts. At least one of our task group officers may have to leave his position because of changes in his personal employment situation and several representatives have been redirected or laid off, decreasing the expertise available to address standards.
The economy is going to decrease the capability of organizations to support the expenses related to hosting meetings. The committee is beginning to feel the effects of corporate belt-tightening, both in the loss of key personnel and in the loss of corporate sponsorship. At least one of our meetings next year will need a new host due to the economic situation of the present host.
The economy is driving those companies that have not been successful with a particular technology and family of standards to attempt to gain market by attempting to shift the storage market to other technologies with which they are more familiar. Some of those new technologies may be developed in standards organizations, while others may be developed in consortia or trade organizations. A few examples intended to change the market dynamic of SCSI and Fibre Channel supported storage include SAS (being developed in INCITS T10), SATA (presently being developed in a consortium, but migrating toward INCITS T12), PC Express (presently being developed in a consortium), and iSCSI (IETF ips working group).
A second major expected challenge is the corporate balance between standardization, that tends to produce a low margin commodity marketplace, and proprietary implementation, that, if successful, creates a high margin but more limited marketplace. Even when basing their work on standards, there is a tendency for corporations to attempt to add value to their products by extending standards-based implementations with proprietary value-added features that may or may not be brought into the standards committees.
A third major challenge is the work load of the standards activities, especially on the members of TG T11.3. We expect that this work load will require us to modify the meeting schedules to increase the amount of time available for such activities during plenary weeks. Interim meetings as well as electronic meetings (principally teleconferences) will be necessary to complete some of these activities.
Dec. 7-11, 2001 Austin, TX (T11 #48, T11.1 #22, T11.2 #21, T11.3 #18)
Feb. 4-8, 2002 Huntington Beach, CA (T11 #49, T11.1 #23, T11.2 #22, T11.3 #19)
April 8-12, 2002 Vancouver, BC, Canada (T11 #50, T11.2 #23, T11.3, #20)
June 10-14, 2002 Rochester, MN (T11 #51, T11.2 #24, T11.3 #21)
Aug. 5-9, 2002 Seattle, WA (T11 #52, T11.2 #25, T11.3 #22)
Oct. 7-11, 2002 New Orleans, LA (T11 #53, T11.2 #26, T11.3 #23)
Feb. 3-7, 2003 Newport Beach, CA
June 2-6, 2003 Minneapolis, MN
Aug. 11-15, 2003 Portsmouth, UK
Full details of these meetings can be found by pressing the meetings link at www.t11.org . Currently the plenaries of the various groups occur within the meeting week as follows:
TC T11 and its task groups maintain liaison with the following organizations. Most liaison representatives are member organizations with representatives in both TC T11 and the liaison organization.
Liaison is maintained with INCITS (INternational Committee for Information Technology Standards) to keep the committee informed of the actions of the INCITS organization and the progress of our projects within INCITS. See www.incits.org for further information.
Liaison is maintained with INCITS TC T10 (Technical Committee on I/O Interfaces - Lower Level), commonly called the SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) committee. The SCSI command set and protocols are carried across the majority of Fibre Channel connections. For more information about T10 see www.t10.org .
Liaison is maintained with two parts of IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), the ips (TCP/IP for storage) working group and a more general liaison with the security and transport activities of IETF. The IETF ips working group has two projects key to TC T11. One of those projects, FCIP, is used in the FC-BB-2 standard. The second uses IP infrastructure to support Fibre Channel Fabric capabilities. The FC-SP project makes use of much of the work of the security working groups, particularly the ipsec working group. For more information about IETF's ips and security working groups, see www.ietf.org .
Liaison is maintained with the FCIA, the Fibre Channel Industry Association. The FCIA is a trade and technical organization that involves most of the manufacturers of products compliant with TC T11 standards. The FCIA provides many services. For T11, one of the most important activities is its Fibre Channel Technology Road Map. The road map provides up-to-date guidance about user requirements for the technologies being standardized by TC T11. Another key activity is the SANMark Qualified Program that provides tests and a qualification program examining Fibre Channel interoperability and compliance. FCIA will also be hosting the T11 websites in the future. For more information about FCIA, see www.fibrechannel.org .
Liaison is maintained with SNIA, the Storage Networking Industry Association. SNIA is a trade and technical organization that addresses the use of Fibre Channel and other technologies for the creation of large storage area networks (SANs). SNIA's technical committees provide many inputs into the TC T11 activities, especially with respect to SAN management functions and the security of SANs. For more information about FCIA, see www.snia.org .
Liaison is maintained with SFF, formerly named the "Small Form Factor" committee, but now known by its letters. The SFF is an industry organization that documents industry standards in areas typically avoided by accredited standards organizations. Such areas include optical transceiver modules used by Fibre Channel, mechanical standards for Fibre Channel and SCSI storage devices, and connectors for Fibre Channel. For more information about SFF, see www.sffcommittee.org .
Liaison is maintained with T1.X1.5, a working group of Technical Committee T1X1, which in turn is a committee of T1, a committee sponsored by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions and accredited by the American National Standards Institute. T1.X1.5, the Optical Hierarchical Interfaces Working Group, prepares technical reports related to telecommunications network technology pertaining to optical network hierarchical structures. One such activity involves the encapsulation of Fibre Channel communications across optical networks using GFP, the Generic Framing Protocol. For more information about T1.X1.5, see www.t1.org/t1x1/_x15-rms.htm
Liaison is maintained with XFP, an industry consortium that develops serial optical transceiver modules at the 10 Gb/s Fibre Channel rate. XFP has defined a serial 10 Gb/s
interface called XFI that is of interest as a possible target of T11.2 standardization. For more information about XFP, see www.xfpmsa.org .
Liaison is maintained with IEEE 802.3ae, the technical committee that develops 10 Gigabit Ethernet standards. The 1 lane and 4 lane physical layers and the optical signal encoding used in the 10 GFC standard are derived from the IEEE 802.3ae standard. For more information about IEEE 802.3ae, see grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/3/ae .
Liaison is maintained with PICMG (PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturer's Group), an organization that develops specifications for industrial computer modules, including Compact PCI cards and many others. TC T11 maintains liaison with PICMG to assist in creating back-plane connection capabilities for Fibre Channel links. For more information about PICMG, see www.picmg.org .
Liaison is maintained with the DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force), an organization that develops management standards for computer systems and networks based on CIM (Common Information Model). TC T11 is involved with providing the necessary input to DMTF to properly represent and manage storage area networks. For more information about DMTF, see www.dmtf.org .
The membership lists for TC T11 are available on the T11 website under the members button. The officers of TC T11 and its TGs are shown below.
The work of T11 has become significantly more important because of the economy and the threats to corporate organizations and data. The implementation of Fibre Channel based systems for Storage Area Networks (SANs) has demonstrated that more efficient use can be made of computer and storage resources in many environments. At the same time, the long-distance capabilities provided by Fibre Channel allow high performance mirroring and back-up to assure the continuation of normal business in the event of natural or man-made damage to a part of the system. It is likely that both these requirements will continue to build the marketplace for T11 technology over the next several years.
Other technologies, including TCP/IP and SONET connections, will be used to extend SANs even beyond the 80 km T11-based physical layers will presently support. The development of these technologies will be within IETF and T1.X1, although Fibre Channel specific portions of the work will be done within T11.3 or by liaison with T11.
The work of T11 has also become important because of its contributions to other technologies. It is the basis of 1 Gb/s Ethernet, SATA, SAS, and other technologies. TC T11's physical layers and signal integrity measurement techniques have been used by a number of technologies in the range of 1 to 4 Gb/s and also at 10 Gb/s.
The management of SANs will continue to become an increasingly important activity. While it is likely that significant parts of the work will be carried forward within T11, other parts of the work may be carried forward in other standards organizations or industry consortia, including IETF, T10, SNIA, and DMTF. Much of the work specific to Fibre Channel for these broader organizations will be carried on within T11.5 or by liaison with T11.
Bandwidth increases beyond 10 Gb/s have been discussed within T11.2 and are likely to be part of formal proposals over the next 2-3 years. Proposals for 40 Gb/s and 100 Gb/s have been mentioned.
The trend towards the development of computer-related standards in industry groups rather than in formal standards committees has continued to gain strength. Specifically, this trend reflects the consolidation of "design activities" for the entire computer industry into a much smaller number of centers. The industry groups referenced elsewhere in this report have now reached a level of stability that they are probably capable of pursuing such a path themselves. In the last annual report, it was considered possible that most major new standardization activities in the computer interface arena will take place outside a formal standards committee. What actually appears to be happening now is that new development may take place outside the standards committees, but that much of it is later brought into some sort of standards arena or industry consortium providing standards-like services to meet the need felt by many customers for standards compliant interfaces. Standardized interfaces or interfaces supported by a significant industry consortium provide users with stable designs that are likely to provide a relatively long market life-time. Where such standardization is elected to be performed within an industry consortium, the usual reason expressed is a simpler and faster process. Most such consortia subsequently learn that the process requires significant legal effort and saves little if any time over traditional standards activities. In some cases, the unexpressed reason is a desire of some leaders within the consortia to retain control of certain technology developments.
The heavy work loads and highly technical environments associated with our activities seem tailor made for interim electronic meetings. However, we have not yet been able to fully exploit this capability, principally because of restrictions implemented by corporate fire walls. We would welcome helpful solutions to this challenge from INCITS or other organizations.
T11 meeting activities are financed and hosted by volunteer organizations. All travel, room, and related business expenses are financed by the individual participants and their member organizations. T11 has no direct financial activities.
T11 has made a major transition in early 1998 from paper-based operating procedure to a completely web-based, interactive procedure. An online document register allows documents to be numbered automatically, submitted via ftp, and linked into the register for click-able access. The full details (company, address, phone, e-mail etc.) of attendees at all T11 plenary meetings, and of Principal and Alternate Representatives of all T11 member companies, are available online, and people may update their own details under password control. A web-based Letter Ballot scheme is in place that allows the submittal of comments by completing a form OR attaching a file to the vote. Future meeting notices are also generated by completing a web-based form. Both the document and "people" databases are searchable.
These web-based procedures have created the requirement for all documents to be presented electronically in accordance with guidelines established by the TC and published as T11/98-050v2 . Additional procedures have been established for T11.3 to fully exploit the capabilities of electronic distribution. These procedures, documented in T11/02-223v0 are being considered as procedures for T11 and its other task groups as well. FCIA has graciously agreed to accept the responsibility for hosting the T11 website and FTP site, removing dependency on a single member company or person. Arrangements are being made to transfer the website.