Compaq and BT have begun trials of an extended Fibre Channel storage area network (San) in London.

The network, which runs between London's Docklands and Holborn, stretches the Fibre Channel San over 40km and the two companies expect to extend that to 70km by the end of the year.

The project uses BT's Channel Extension Service (CES) 1000, which runs Compaq's Disaster Tolerant San technology. BT said it would deliver fast data and extend the transmission boundary for users, allowing them to be linked distant sites.

Donal Madden, a spokesperson for Compaq's storage division, said the move would reduce the time taken to get systems running after a crash.

The service claims to restore data within four minutes after a disaster by mirroring. "Downtime is dead time and many of our customers are looking to reduce the recovery times associated with tape back-up," he said.

Frost and Sullivan analyst Anoop Ubhey agreed that the reduction of downtime was the most important role for back-up technologies, but said that the uptake of Sans would not mean the end of the road for tape storage. "Mirroring is something a lot of vendors have been using. It will not be the end for tape back-up in all areas. Many people said tape was going to die a while back, but people are still using it and there are many advantages of using this technology," he said.

The two companies said the service was being set up in readiness for an expected boom in data storage over the next 12 months. Shaun McCaughan, business continuity solutions manager at Compaq, said: "The Fibre Channel San is an exciting way for organisations to access and protect their critical data.