Data Center Ethernet Opens the Door to FCoE
At Supercomputing 2008 (November 18-20, Austin, Texas), nearly a dozen communications leaders came together to show deployment of several types of mixed traffic over a multi-vendor 10 GbE network infrastructure. Dubbed the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Converged Data Center Demonstration, this event hosted by the Ethernet Alliance showcased how 10 GbE optical and copper technologies could interoperate and interconnect a complete data center. Equipment included PHYs, NICs, CNAs, layer 2 and 3 switches, cabling systems, storage, test systems, and management consoles. Test data ranged from application-to-application traffic, low latency streaming video from iSCSI storage, converged traffic types via virtualized servers, and FCoE over a lossless Ethernet network.
The importance of this event is that it shows that the Ethernet networking industry is working diligently to extend their hand to storage, so to speak, with as much vigor as the Fibre Channel industry is reaching out to the LAN. The Data Center Ethernet (DCE) demonstrated enables the data center to carry many types of traffic, and FCoE will be the bridge that brings native FC data to DCE, leading to the Converged Data Center. Put another way, DCE opens the door that is required to enable FCoE to serve as the media that will bring storage to the data center.
With DCE available, the Converged Data Center is that much closer to reality. Several switch vendors in the industry claim that they can carry all types of traffic, and they have proven this in terms of transport. They even have Priority Flow-based Control (PFC) mechanisms in place, making their Ethernet lossless so it can carry Fibre Channel traffic reliably while meeting the high standards associated with Fibre Channel for data integrity.
However, to be unbiased, we must admit the reality that not all of the pieces necessary for FCoE are in place yet. This demonstration has shown that individual network components are capable of managing PFC to achieve lossless Ethernet. But networks are not islands of individual nodes. Storage networks are managed as an entity themselves, and reliable, lossless connectivity must extend across the entire network. Specifically, congestion management has yet to be addressed. The network must be able to interoperate and recover from failures as a whole as well as the individual components do. If not, the data center cannot offer the same reliability as the storage network.This demonstration is wonderful news for FCoE. Lossless Ethernet is still at a preliminary stage, and while there is yet much work to be done to enable FCoE in real-world networks, the momentum forward continues to increase. With players like Cisco, Extreme Networks, Force10 Networks, Fulcrum Microsystems, Ixia, Mellanox, Panduit, Solarflare, Teranetics, Tyco Electronics, and QLogic paving the way, it is only a matter of time before many others follow to join in bringing FCoE to reality.
For specific information on the Supercomputing 2008 – 10 Gigabit Ethernet Converged Data Center Demonstration, including detailed descriptions of the data center configuration and test traffic, visit: http://www.ethernetalliance.org/images/SC08%20White%20paper.pdf.
For more information on the Ethernet Alliance, visit: http://www.ethernetalliance.org.