[November 17, 2009] UNH-IOL Holds First Enterprise iSCSI Event Tweet DURHAM, N.H. --(Business Wire)-- The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL (News - Alert)) hosted a week long Enterprise iSCSI event. The testing event extended from November 9-13, 2009. The event, which included iSCSI vendors such as Broadcom, Dell, Intel (News - Alert), Fulcrum, JDSU, Marvell, and NetApp, demonstrated the validation and functionality of converging storage and LAN traffic by running iSCSI and other traffic types on the same physical 10GbE link by giving each traffic type its own virtual channel with guaranteed bandwidth and congestion elimination. The University of New Hampshire Inter-Operability Lab (UNH-IOL) is known for its technical expertise in Ethernet technologies and over a decade of experience in hosting plugfest events. Group test events, or Plugfests, serve as a means to allow both member and non-member companies to work side-by-side to accomplish detailed, thorough testing with each other's products real time. "Attending plugfests throughout a product's development is one of the fastest methods for finding and correcting issues that might not be apparent until too late," said Kirt Gillum, Engineering Manager with Dell's (News - Alert) EqualLogic product line. "The University of New Hampshire Interoperability Lab is one of the best plugfest sites in the country. Customers expect that products will interoperate and work together. The entire Ethernet industry was built on this premise of interoperability, and iSCSI is no different." The event focused on testing interoperability of several different network topologies and successfully demonstrated three different traffic classifications over one converged network. Participants also tested the interoperability of other DCB capabilities, including Per-Priority Flow Control (PFC), Enhanced Transmission Selection (ETS) and Data Center Bridging Exchange (DCBX), as well as, iSCSI snooping. "iSCSI is gaining popularity in the data center largely because of its scalability, ease of management, and economic benefits," said Charlie Lavacchia, iSCSI Product Manager, NetApp. "We are also seeing increased iSCSI adoption as organizations look to deploy ‘cloud' based solutions. Interoperability is key in such environments, and events such as the UNH-IOL plugfests enable partners and competitors to ensure standards based solutions, such as iSCSI storage, deliver the highest end user value." About the UNH-IOL Founded in 1988, the UNH-IOL is one of the networking industry's premier third-party proving grounds for developing technologies. Approximately 200 companies use the UNH-IOL's 32,000+ sq. foot facility to extend their development and quality assurance efforts by testing and fine-tuning technologies, protocols and products for multi-vendor interoperability and conformance to standards. For more information, visit http://www.iol.unh.edu. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]