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We invited I-Tech Corp. to take part in our first-ever SAN test, and to use its two Fibre Channel testing tools as part of our test bed. Although its products turned out not to be truly applicable to what we were testing, we were impressed with the power, configurability and flexibility of its solution.
Moreover, we are convinced that for the testing of individual Fibre Channel components by manufacturers or integrators, I-Tech's equipment is first-rate.
I-Tech's product lines originated in the SCSI-over-copper world. Its two new testers, the passive Satellite ICF-3016 Fibre Channel Analyzer and the active IFC-3 Fibre Channel Emulation System, both work with the SCSI-over-Fibre Channel standards.
The Satellite tester that I-Tech brought to the SAN test was its top-of-the-line 16-channel unit, which consisted of a large box with bright LEDs for each channel, as well as monitoring software which runs on a Win32 workstation connected via Ethernet. For each channel, the Satellite sits in-line, watching all traffic passing through in both direction; the system dedicates two custom...