· Link to Website of T11 (includes all documents, minutes, and member information)
· See Informal Description of Work:
· Link to T11 area on the INCITS Projects Database
·
See Significant Accomplishments.
·
See previous year's meetings.
·
See next year's planned meetings.
· T11 Membership and Officers.
·
See Future Trends and Related Technical
Activities.
·
See Other Administrative
Information.
T11 is responsible for storage interconnect and networking families of standards, including Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel protocol mappings to higher level architectures, SBCON, HIPPI, and a number of related management and API standards. T11 is co-TAG to ISO/IEC/JTC 1/SC 25/WG 4 along with INCITS TC T10.
The second half of 2003 has been a period of project completion and administrative change within the committee. Projects that have reached completion include HIPPI-6400-OPT, FCSM, FC-FS, 10GFC, FC-BB-2, and FC-SB-3. The gradual shift of corporate responsibilities for some participants has created some change in the officer appointments.
Extended capability of the core standards:
The core standards of Fibre Channel continue to be refined, clarifying implementation requirements and adding new capabilities. Special attention has been focused on methods of expanding the addressing and routing capabilities of Fibre Channel switches. FC-FS-2, FC-LS, FC-SW-3, FC-SW-4, FC-GS-4, and FC-GS-5 are standards treated in these discussions.
Interoperability:
Interoperability continues to be a key requirement, and technical reports defining the requirements of interoperability (FC-MI-2 and FC-DA) are major standards development projects. A study group has been established to assist the FCIA in a more complete review of the FCIA Fibre Channel compliance documents.
Physical layer:
The physical layer technologies continue to improve in performance and cost-effectiveness, making the FC-PI-2, FC-PI-3, and FC-PI-4 standards the focus of intense concentration by organizations bringing these new technologies to the industry. The tools for qualifying and testing these technologies are provided in the FC-MJSQ and FCSM technical reports.
Remote access:
Fibre Channel is becoming important as a high-performance secure mechanism for remote access to storage. As a result, the FC-BB-3 standard developments are bringing the telecommunication organizations and Fibre Channel switch and gateway manufacturers together to further improve long distance connection technology. Liaison has been established with ATIS T1X1.5 and with ITU-T to communicate about the application of the Generic Framing Protocol to Fibre Channel. In addition, a study group has been established to support the IETF standardization of the transmission of IPv6 information over Fibre Channel.
Security:
The use of Fibre Channel links in more sensitive environments and outside secure computer rooms has increased the requirements for security. The FC-SP standard is being developed to provide security protection for Fibre Channel environments.
Management and programming interfaces:
Fibre Channel environments are growing in sophistication and complexity. To provide management and application support for such environments management and application programming interfaces, including FC-SWAPI, FC-HBA, FAIS, SM-AMD, and SM-MM are being developed. In addition, internal study projects (SM-DMM and SM-NSM) have been initiated to study management information block formats.
As a result of these activities, the total program of work of T11 during the period of this annual report is as follows:
|
Family |
Projects in Development |
Projects in T11 or INCITS Approval |
Published Standards |
Total |
|
FC T11 |
|
|
1 |
1 |
|
FC Physical |
3 |
2 |
1 |
6 |
|
FC Logical |
10 + 3 Study |
3 |
3 |
15 + 3 Study |
|
Mgmt T11.5 |
4 + 2 Study |
1 |
|
5 + 2 Study |
|
HIPPI T11.1 |
|
|
1 |
1 |
|
TOTAL |
17 + 5 Study |
5 |
6 |
27 + 5 Study |
T11 work continues to be recognized and supported by the industry. For this reason, 5 new standards have been brought into the committee during this period. T11 had 55 member organizations in December of 2003, a decrease from 62 in October 2002 and 57 in June of 2003. 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 17 organizations participate in the T11 Task Groups, as compared with 11 in June of 2003, with the increase principally in the T11.2 and T11.5 Task Groups.
The following is the outline of the task groups under T11 and their project allocation:
At present, all projects in development are assigned to Task Groups.
The projects currently allocated to this task group include: FC‑MJSQ, FC‑PI‑2, FC‑PI‑3, FC‑PI‑4, and FCSM‑2.
The projects currently allocated to this task group include: FC‑AE‑1553, FC‑AE‑ASM, FC‑AE‑LP, FC‑AE‑RDMA, FC-BB-3, FC-DA, FC-FS-2, FC-GS-4, FC-LS, FC-MI-2, FC-SW-3, FC‑SW‑4, and FC-SP. In addition, there are three study groups, one studying Fibre Channel conformance documents, one studying Fabric Extensions, and a third studying IPv6 over Fibre Channel.
The projects currently allocated to this group include: FC-HBA, FC-SWAPI, SM-AMD, SM-MM, and FAIS. In addition, there are two study groups preparing draft MIBs for Fibre Channel.
The committee has forwarded 6 new project proposals during this period, four associated with avionics, one associated with the remote attachment, and one extending Fibre Channel switch capabilities.
Over 410 documents and presentations have been prepared supporting the technical and administrative activities of the committee in the six month period this report covers.
The most significant challenge this period has been associated with the broadening applicability of Fibre Channel and storage networking technologies. The INCITS TC T11 activities have created subsidiary activity in a number of new venues, creating heavier workloads and more extensive and demanding liaison activities.
The increased workload has created a requirement for more hours of meetings. We have partially accommodated that requirement by rescheduling the meeting week, organizing more efficient meetings, and streamlining and focusing the plenary meetings. However, the demands have also created more interim meetings and interim teleconferences. This increased workload has also placed more strain on the resources of individual member organizations, sometimes requiring multiple members to attend parallel meetings.
The increased breadth of the activities has increased the liaison efforts as well. Liaison activities now extend to ATIS Working Group T1X1.5, ITU-T, the Fibre Channel Industry Association (SANmark, roadmap and speed forums), and the working groups of the IETF. Fortunately, T11 has members in common with most of the organizations requiring liaison.
As stated in the last annual report, the economy continues to be a challenge. Most of our key personnel have established themselves in stable organizations at present, though a few additional organizations have withdrawn membership because of resource constraints. The effects of the economy appear to have stabilized, although at a lower level of participation than in the past. Part of the reduction in the number of member organizations participating in TC T11 and TG T11.3 is associated with the consolidation of the industry. The increase in the number of member organizations participating in TG T11.5 is associated with the very active and competitive field of SAN management.
A second major challenge is the economic effect of the gradual emergence of additional storage networking technologies and functions. These force member organizations to participate in other standards venues in addition to TC T11, including TC T10, IEEE 802.3, SNIA, and the IETF. These additional technologies sometimes reduce the sharp technical focus on T11 issues, especially in the area of the physical layer and SAN management.
A third major challenge is a large new set of technical capabilities that are now being brought into TC T11 for standardization. These are often introduced to improve the competitive capability of Fibre Channel relative to other technologies. These include among many others:
The challenge of additional standards venues and the basic workload are likely to place new demands on T11 members and may, in some cases, slow progress on the development of desired standards.
Oct. 7-11, 2002 New Orleans, LA (T11 #53, T11.2 #26, T11.3 #23, T11.5 #1)
Dec. 9-13, 2002 Tucson, AZ (T11 #54, T11.2 #27, T11.3 #24, T11.5 #2)
Feb. 3-7, 2003 Newport Beach, CA (T11 #55, T11.2 #28, T11.3 #25, T11.5 #3)
Apr. 7-11, 2003 Santa Fe, NM (T11 #56, T11.2 #29, T11.3 #36, T11.5#4)
June 2-6, 2003 Minneapolis, MN (T11 #57, T11.2 #30, T11.3 #37, T11.5 #5)
Aug. 11-15, 2003 Cambridge, MA (T11 #58, T11.2 #31, T11.3 #38, T11.5 #6)
Oct. 6-10, 2003 Oklahoma City, OK (T11 #59, T11.2 #32, T11.3 #39, T11.5 #7)
Dec. 8-12, 2003 Paradise Is., Bahamas (T11 #60, T11.2 #33, T11.3 #40, T11.5 #8)
Feb. 2-6, 2004 Dana Point, CA
Apr. 5-9, 2004 Monterey, CA
Jun. 7-11, 2004 Chicago, IL
Aug. 2-6, 2004 Keystone, CO
Oct. 4-3, 2004 Austin, TX
Dec. 6-10, 2004 Palm Springs, CA (?)
Full details of these meetings can be found by pressing the meetings link at www.t11.org. Currently the plenary meetings of the TC and TGs occur on Thursday of the meeting week.
TC T11 and its task groups maintain liaison with the following organizations. Most liaison representatives are member organizations with representatives in both INCITS 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 http://www.incits.org/ for further information.
Liaison is maintained with INCITS TC T10 (Technical Committee on SCSI Interfaces). The SCSI command set and protocols are carried across the majority of Fibre Channel connections. For more information about T10 see http://www.t10.org/.
Liaison is maintained with three parts of IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), the ips (TCP/IP for storage) working group, the imss (Internet and Management Support 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, iFCP, uses IP infrastructure to support Fibre Channel Fabric capabilities. The IETF imss working group has several projects that are relevant to TC T11, including a definition for transmitting IPv6 information across Fibre Channel and several management information block (MIB) definitions. 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 http://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. 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. For more information about FCIA, see http://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 http://www.snia.org/.
Liaison is maintained with the SFF Committee, 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. Formal liaison is maintained with three SFF Special Subject Working Groups (Transceivers, High Performance Electrical Interconnect, and High Speed Optical Interconnect). For more information about SFF, see http://www.sffcommittee.org/ie/.
Liaison is maintained with T1X1.5, a working group of Technical Sub-Committee T1X1, a committee sponsored by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions and accredited by the American National Standards Institute. T1X1.5, 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 T1X1.5, see www.t1.org/t1x1/_x15-rms.htm.
Liaison is maintained with ITU-T SG-15 Q.11/15, a Study Group sub-group of the International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Section. The group maintains liaison with TC T11 to verify that the Generic Framing Protocol properly supports Fibre Channel. For more information about ITU-T SG-15, see http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/studygroups/com15/index.asp
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 http://www.xfpmsa.org/.
Liaison has been initiated with UXPI, an industry consortium that develops 10 Gb/s copper backplane technology. The liaison work is still in its early stages.
Liaison is maintained with IEEE 802. Relevant projects include:
IEEE P802.3ak, 10GBASE-CX4
IEEE P802.3ah, Ethernet in the First Mile
IEEE 10GBASE-T Study Group
Additional work on 10 Gb/s technologies is also being followed within the IEEE.
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 http://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 officers of TC T11 and its TGs are shown below.
Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.
1745 Technology drive
San Jose, CA 95110
Phone: (408) 333-8135
E-mail: rsnively@brocade.com
Andiamo Systems
375 East Tasman Drive
San Jose, CA 95134
USA
Phone: 408-853-9172
Fax:
E-mail: cds@andiamo.com
EMC CORPORATION
Apt. 18C
85 East Indai Row
Boston, MA 02110
USA
Phone: 617-300-7242
Fax:
E-mail: robinson_gary@emc.com
6290 Sequence Drive
San Diego, CA 92121
USA
Phone: 858-535-3531
Fax:
E-mail: nwanamaker@amcc.com
INTEL CORPORATION
PCI-104-E2
44235 Nobel Drive
Fremont, CA 94538
USA
Phone: 408-398-2441
E-mail: schelto.vandoorn@intel.com
CYPRESS SEMICONDUCTOR
2511 Highway 7
Excelsior, MN 55331
USA
Phone: 952-401-7997
Fax:
E-mail: tpalkert@visi.com
Hewlett Packard
MS: SHR3-2/W8
Shrewsbury, MA 01545
USA
Phone: 978-828-9102
Fax: 978-470-0321
E-mail: bill_ham@ix.netcom.com
QLogic
6321 Bury Drive
Eden Prairie, MN 55346
USA
Phone: 952-932-4064
E-mail: craig.carlson@qlogic.com
IBM Tivoli Systems
3605 Highway 52 N
MS: 2C6
Rochester, MN 55901
USA
Phone: 507-253-5208
Fax: 507-253-2880
E-mail: gop@us.ibm.com
BROCADE COMMUNICATIONS
7213 Marblethorpe
Roseville, CA 95747
USA
Phone: 916-772-3658
Fax: 916-771-5416
E-mail: bmartin@gadzoox.com
Veritas Software
HRO3/3007
400 International Parkway Address
Heathrow, FL 32746
Phone: 407-357-7257
FAX: 407-357-7590
E-mail: roger.cummings@veritas.com
McData
MS: 401
4555 Great America Parkway
San Jose, Ca. 95131
Phone: 408-567-5789
FAX: 408-748-0058
E-mail: robert.pulley@mcdata.com
Intersan
100 Enterprise Way, Suite C3
Scotts Valley, CA 95066
Phone: 831-431-1385
FAX: 831-430 0691
E-mail: nabin@intersan.net
The work of T11 remains very important because of the requirements of the changing economy and the requirement to protect corporate 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 backup 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.
The work is also very important because of the very high bandwidth and transmission efficiency achieved by Fibre Channel implementations. As computing resources grow more powerful and are distributed across more processors, Fibre Channel is the principal technology capable of meeting the performance and connectivity requirements of large enterprise data processing environments.
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 T1X1, 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 8 Gb/s and also at the 12 Gb/s rate achieved by 10 Gb/s Fibre Channel’s more efficient coding technology.
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. In addition, an 8 Gb/s Fibre Channel loop compatible implementation is in the early stages of consideration. Some low-cost high speed physical layer implementations may be developed in the IEEE and used by T11.
Industry consortia remain an important source of new standards activities. There is a strong desire by many organizations to create more formal standards based on those standards activities. We have seen at least one case recently that elected to use INCITS fast-track standardization as the primary mechanism for carrying the documents forward into the standards world. We have seen a second case that elected to use T11 instead of a consortium because T11 has gained a reputation for fairness and reasonably fast action.
The heavy workloads and highly technical environments associated with our activities seem tailor made for interim electronic meetings. We are now making Wi-Fi network access available at most meetings for the convenience of the participants. We have not yet been able to fully exploit electronic meetings, because of restrictions implemented by some corporate firewalls.
T11 meeting activities are financed and hosted by volunteer organizations. The individual participants and their member organizations finance all travel, room, and related business expenses. 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 web 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. Completing a web-based form also generates future meeting notices. 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. The website is presently financed by corporate donations. Our Internet Service Provider is currently installing a dedicated system for the use of our organization. The administrator is providing tutorials to train more members in the proper management of the website.
T11 has asked whether INCITS will be creating a set of standard e-mail reflectors for INCITS activities, including the three e-mail reflectors used by T11.