FCIA Blasts Spirent Test

In an unusual move, the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) has released a statement criticizing Spirent Communications' positioning of its high-scale SAN switch test as a "misguided marketing attempt."

Spirent last week unveiled its Storage Routing Test (SRT), which is designed to simulate up to 239 Fibre Channel switches in a single fabric -- the first test of its kind in the industry. According to an industry source, the test was actually developed by Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), which subsequently licensed it to Spirent. Spirent is selling the SRT software module for its SmartBits testing platform for $40,000 (see Spirent: FC Switches Fail to Scale and Source: Cisco Licensed Test to Spirent).

In describing its preliminary testing of Fibre Channel equipment with the SRT, Brian Mason, Spirent's product manager for storage solutions, said: "We've found major scaleability concerns with all of the NEMs [network equipment manufacturers]."

The Spirent announcement clearly punched the FCIA's hot buttons. In a statement sent to Byte and Switch yesterday, the association calls Spirent's SRT an "artificial test scenario" that doesn't apparently serve any purpose except to generate sales for Spirent.

"Spirent states that their artificial test scenario is displaying a real-world problem that is rampant in the Fibre Channel industry," the FCIA says in its statement. "But more likely, it looks as if they're simply trying to persuade test labs to buy Spirent products to see this problem for themselves."The FCIA continues: "Ultimately, a problem that is only seen during simulation, but cannot be reproduced using publicly available networking gear, is not really a problem. After all, if an end user is never going to encounter a specific problem, why bother addressing it?"

It's worth pointing out that three members of the FCIA -- Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A), Finisar Corp. (Nasdaq: FNSR), and I-Tech Corp. -- are Spirent's direct competitors in the SAN testing market. Needless to say, Spirent is not a member of the FCIA.

Other FCIA member companies include Cisco, Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD), EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM), JNI Corp. (Nasdaq: JNIC), McData Corp. (Nasdaq: MCDTA), Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), and QLogic Corp. (Nasdaq: QLGC).

The FCIA notes that traffic generators such as Spirent's SRT have their place in testing, especially during product development cycles. But it also says that until Spirent can validate its claims, "it is best that we simply view their comments as a misguided marketing attempt trying to talk companies into trying/using Spirent test products."

Spirent officials did not respond to requests for comment on the FCIA's statement.— Todd Spangler, US Editor, Byte and Switch