Finisar Corp.s Xgig series of blade-based analysis tools, announced earlier this month, is so cutting-edge that it can handle emerging protocols such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Fibre Channel.
The Xgig line is not for the casual storage manager in terms of its price and capabilities. Its available as a $40,800 single-blade chassis for field service professionals or as a four-blade, rack-mount chassis. (Pricing for the four-blade design isnt available.)
Its ability to capture and analyze traces is designed to help diagnose and identify problems in complex switch environments, and it is bound to be a popular tool at interoperability tests and beta sites.
Flexibility is the key benefit of the Xgig; it can analyze virtually any storage networking protocol, including iSCSI, FCIP (Fibre Channel over IP), 10G-bit Ethernet and all varieties of Fibre Channel.
Compared with the older testing hardware we used, which was in a travel-friendly, portable form factor, the new four-blade format sacrifices portability for scalability.