This white paper decribes the benefits of Fibre Channel and SONET as the basis for high-performance and cost effective data transport through the wide area network (WAN).
Specifically, it looks at the economics of large-scale data transfer and examines the real-world throughput rates that can be achieved using IP-based transfer over the WAN. It also describes a Fibre Channel over SONET based system for transferring large amounts of data across the WAN. The effective throughput rates are compared and normalized against the monthly recurring costs. (Aug. 2002)