SAN consolidations, blade servers, virtual servers and storage, data encryption and requirements for more secure fabric services are prompting enterprises to bring more application services into their SAN fabric. Fibre Channel (FC) switch vendors Brocade Communications Systems Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. are adding new features to their FC directors' core operating systems or on specialized FC director blades that support these new applications.

For Brocade, the future of its FC directors clearly lies with its 48000 Director model. Though Brocade plans to continue support for its other FC director models (see "The other Fibre Channel directors," below) into the foreseeable future, its 48000 Director is clearly the flagship model for new switch services. "The 48000 will sit at the core," says Doug Ingraham, Brocade's senior director of SAN product management. Application blades such as the FR4-18i Director Blade, FC4-16IP Director Blade and the FA4-18 Application Blade are only available for the 48000, and Brocade doesn't plan to port these blades or services to its other FC directors.