Predicting FCoE Adoption: Taking into Account the Human Factor
Not all new standards are created equal. While each must pass through various design, ratification, and adoption phases, some standards penetrate the market more quickly than others. Rate of success depends upon many factors, including how compelling the technology is, how quickly reliable hardware and its supporting software are widely available, and how decision makers view the emerging technology.
FCoE is clearly compelling. It promises to:
- Converge Ethernet networking and Fibre Channel storage through a single, unified fabric
- Increase performance while simplifying management complexity
- Extend the reach and capabilities of the SAN while protecting existing infrastructure investment
- Provide more computing power in a smaller footprint, meaning fewer servers, less cabling, and more efficient power consumption.
Reliable hardware and software are already available and, in some cases, already installed:
- Cisco’s 10 GbE Nexus 5000 series switches will allow users to enable FCoE through software once the relevant standards have been ratified
- Emulex, QLogic and others have converged network adapters (CNAs) that support FCoE
- Intel has announced FCoE support for its 10 GbE server adapters
Alas, as is commonly the case with emerging technologies, the most critical element affecting FCoE adoption will be how the market accepts it. The human perception of FCoE’s readiness, more so than its actual technical viability, is what will determine when FCoE goes live. Several factors hindering FCoE include:
- Fear. Uncertainty about the economy is a key driver for prompting network administrators to “play it safe”. But playing it safe is too frequently a euphemism for spending too on soon-to-be-legacy technologies. If the economy is facing a downturn, FCoE can bring significant cost savings when they are needed most. The companies that recognize this will fare any hard times the best.
- Fear. FCoE brings together networking and storage teams, organizations that typically have had to compete with each other for resources. Convergence may be viewed as impending obsolescence and a threat to job security. The very people who stand to gain the most from embracing FCoE may feel rather that they have the most to lose.
- Fear. FCoE is an emerging standard and, as with any new technology, it represents gain as well as risk. This type of fear is rooted in lack of familiarity. Risk always seems higher with those things we don’t yet understand. Expect long proof-of-concept trails before the skeptics are convinced this is ready for their data center.
Excellent process is being made in the design and deployment of reliable FCoE equipment. However, for FCoE to become one of the standards that reaches market faster than others, those companies invested in its success must take a firm hand in overcoming the fear that threatens to forestall its advantages. Clearly, counting on the industry to accept FCoE because it’s a good idea is not enough.
- What other fear factors threaten to delay FCoE?
- What can the industry as a whole do to address these fears?
Further Reading: Infostor – “The Promise of FCoE, the Reality of Adoption”
July 16th, 2008 at 7:06 am
i like it
July 29th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Most of the article is good.
The section on “Fears” completely misses the mark on why some end users are conservative about new technology. New products are always buggy. Downtime and failures can be orders of magnitude more expensive than hardware or maintenance.
Ironically, my ugliest example of this lesson was building a SAN!
The “reliable” claim isn’t credible until a product has been in the field for some time. Acknowledging this, many vendors have adopted the distinction between “General Deployment” (still not a turkey after X customers run Y hours) and “General Availability” (just passed qual).
“This type of fear is rooted in lack of familiarity” is condescending. System architects are accustomed to dealing with things they only superficially understand. “This concern is rooted in the pain suffered each and every time they adopt a new technology too early” is more accurate.
“Fears” implies the end-users aren’t rational and don’t have valid concerns. As a perspective end-user, I resent that. Would have accepted something like…
“Concerns about the problems commonly associated with early adoption… may not recognize that FCoE is built on established standards and may work on hardware they already trust.”
I don’t believe the argument that existing Fiber Channel is a “soon-to-be-legacy technology” in 2008. Again, cost of downtime and failure can be orders of magnitude higher than the hardware. SANs will still be here for years after FCoE has been established. New servers still come with PCI-X. Windows XP is still more popular than Vista.
Sure, Fiber Channel will phase out eventually - but I doubt it will happen before I could finally break even selling the condo.
July 30th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
There are some very relevant arguments made here.
First and foremost, data centers in general and SANs in particular are very complex and challenging environments. The cost of an outage or even a brownout can be disastrous to a business. We have heard of complete business failures due to a significant disruption in their SAN. Given the rapid changes in technology and the shear number of products in a typical multi-vendor SAN, interoperability and stability issues can become overwhelming to manage. For this reason, SAN admins and IT professionals have good justification for being skeptical.
And that is why the word “fear” was used, perhaps inappropriately. The intent was not to position fear in the sense of “afraid to move forward without cause”, but rather, fear in the sense that there is good reason to be skeptical and to insist on proof-of-concepts and real pre-production deployments before charging ahead in a full-scale production environment.
The good news is that these proof-of-concepts and per-production deployments are happening as we speak. Many vendors in the FCoE ecosystem are actively teaming to improve the overall quality of these systems prior to the time when customers are ready for rollout. It will be these vendors’ ultimate challenge to prove to customers there should be less concern about moving ahead with FCoE.
And yes, Fibre channel will be around for a long time to come. But equally important is “that FCoE is built upon established standards” that will hopefully reduce the issues common with early technology adoption. If this advantage cannot be effectively leveraged in the SAN, then the value proposition of FCoE is simply not as compelling as the industry would hope.