HANNOVER, Germany -- Addressing the rapidly growing market and pent up demand for 4G Fibre Channel extension, Transmode today announced the availability of the SFP based Dual 4G Fibre Channel Transponder for the TM-206 Optical Access platform.

The new Transponder, which is being demonstrated at this years CeBIT exhibition in Hannover, marks a milestone in Storage Area Networking (SAN) Extension, as it allows the most economical transport of 4G Fibre Channel circuits over the WAN using native 4 Gbit/s wavelengths. This new transponder supports dual circuits each individually carrying 1G, 2G or 4G Fibre Channel. Using Transmode’s protocol recognition software, this selection is fully automatic requiring no provisioning and giving operators true Plug-and-Play operation.

A number of recent analyst reports have highlighted the rapid growth of 4G Fibre Channel deployments with port sales rising from approximately 2% in 2004 to 67% in 2006-2007. This growth is generated by the 4G Fibre Channel port costs that are only a small premium over 2G Fibre Channel representing a significant improvement in cost per bit. In addition 4G Fibre Channel achieves lower restrictions than 10G Fibre channel in terms of credit buffer requirements and the corresponding throughput/distance performance and also lower cost optical transport when compared to multiplexed 10G solutions.

“The SAN market and the SAN Extension market in particular is rapidly migrating to 4G Fibre Channel solutions,” said Leo Kappeler, Brocade’s SE Manager, EMEA. “New SAN Switches from vendors such as Brocade, are equipped with 4G Fibre Channel ports by default as this offers the most economic solution. The availability of this new solution from Transmode will greatly enhance the range of SAN Extension options available to the market.”

Transmode Systems AB