16Gb FC Protocol Analyzer System

LeCroy Corporation released its new SierraFC M164, a 16G FC protocol analyzer platform with new industry protocol analyzer specifications in a 1U form factor.

In addition to industry standard FC analyzer features, the SierraFC adds capabilities such as 2ns time-stamp resolution, the largest standard trace capture buffers available, support for Speed Negotiation, Forward Error Correction (FEC), and multi-state triggering and filtering.

"The SierraFC M164 is a compelling new product that will appeal to developers of advanced storage systems and storage networking products," stated Joe Mendolia, Vice President of Marketing for LeCroy Protocol Solutions Group. "The SierraFC M164 enables FC protocol analyzer users with the standard capabilities they have come to expect in a high-end FC protocol analyzer, and after an extraordinary level of customer input, built on those concepts to advance the SierraFC M164 experience to include additional features and functionality required by those users to engineer the best FC systems possible."

The SierraFC M164 has set a new benchmark for FC protocol analyzers with an 2ns time-stamp resolution with 100% capture rate and 16GB standard capture memory; providing more than two times more resolution and two times standard capture memory than comparable solutions.

Additionally, every port on the SierraFC M164 supports LeCroy’s Auto Speed Detection to dynamically follow the speed negotiation process and speed changes on each monitored link, and then presents the data in customizable and user friendly trace views.

The SierraFC is the only 16G FC Protocol Analyzer on the market with support for Forward Error Correction (FEC) enabled links, enabling FC developers and testers to verify the robustness of their FEC implementations.

"Though FEC is an optional specification for 16G FC, FEC support in a Protocol Analyzer is important to our customers because it is already implemented and shipping in the market," stated Joe Mendolia. "And LeCroy is pleased to offer this support immediately upon release for those customers requiring it."

Since FEC is enabled or disabled on the individual device(s) under test, the SierraFC automatically detects it and enables the analyzers FEC support on a link-by-link basis. In addition to capturing and decoding FC traffic on FEC enabled links, FEC Parity errors are automatically detected by the hardware for accurate error triggering, and the FEC payload is displayed in the SierraFC’s easy to use Frame Inspector view.

The SierraFC is shipping and available for demonstration and purchase with all of the features announced.