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The work switch vendors are doing to make development easier for software vendors is perhaps even more important than the hardware platforms that are on the way.
After all, as switch vendors realize, no company would be willing to implement a platform—no matter how good that platform—unless there is a wide range of applications available to take advantage of it.
In the hope of speeding the adoption of intelligent storage area network switches, several major vendors have started creating a standard for them. Brocade Communications Systems Inc. has submitted its XPath API technology to the International Committee for Information Technology Standards Technical Committee T11. The XPath API submission is intended to help generate standards for creating fabric applications.
Brocade isnt alone in posting its technology for such a standard. Cisco Systems Inc. has entered the standards picture by donating its Intelligent Switch API, and McData Corp. is helping to develop the Fabric Application Interface Standard, which is expected to be released in the middle of next year.