I agree about "failover *now*". FDDI -- isn't it dead yet? ;-)
I think someone still uses FDDI. Somewhere. Maybe. :-)
What about GbE and failover to non-GbE (fast ethernet)?
Good question. Thinking back on the configuration commands (I've moved over to NetCache and other Internet stuff, so this is a bit rusty), it seems like you should be able to configure. Whether or not we've actually tested it and will support it would be another matter entirely. I'd guess the answer to that one is no.
Just to make sure, does failover require EtherChannel?
Far from failover *requiring* EtherChannel, the two are currently mutually exclusive, according to some e-mail Paul Norman sent in this thread a few days ago. That's due to an oversight (when failover was spec'ed out, we weren't yet doing EtherChannel, and neither project noticed the other) and will be addressed in a future release.
-- Karl