10GbE, DCB and FCoE offer the promise of an efficient converged network fabric
The arrival of 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE), Data Center Bridging (DCB) and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) promise to enable a truly converged storage network fabric. These technologies offer a clear path for unifying Fibre Channel and Internet SCSI (iSCSI) SANs, while providing enhanced storage efficiency, increased throughput, and cost-effective data center storage deployment.
Today, IT planners have the opportunity to architect a storage network for unprecedented scalability, flexibility and efficiency. FCoE can be used to connect FCoE servers to legacy Fibre Channel SANs through Ethernet, preserving the Fibre Channel user experience as organizations migrate to 10GbE. iSCSI offers the ability to run storage in native Ethernet environments and to route traffic across both LANs and WANs.
Organizations upgrading their 1GbE network fabrics to 10GbE can use iSCSI, which will work in these mixed environments. In the near future, iSCSI traffic can take advantage of QoS, priority flow-control, and other enhanced network features contained in the emerging DCB specification.
Key Benefits
- Low support costs — Convergence can reduce management complexity, and eliminate the need for resources no longer need to be divided between Ethernet and Fibre Channel
- Expanded high-performance computing (HPC) bandwidth: 10GbE is designed to expand bandwidth for connecting HPC clusters to the network
- Energy savings — Unified networks need fewer adapters, cables, and switches in a unified network fabric than in a legacy data center networks, can reduce physical infrastructure, and enhancing power and cooling efficiency
- Security — The Ethernet features of virtual LANs and Ethernet bridge ACLs allow traffic isolation and security
