|
Storage networking vendors have laid out their vision of the data center of the near future. It consists of Fibre Channel (FC) and Ethernet working in perfect harmony, aided by new developments such as Data Center Ethernet and FC over Ethernet (FCoE) feeding into massive backbone switches.
It's still only a vision. Data Center Ethernet and FCoE remain on the drawing board, and recently launched converged network platforms from Brocade Communications Systems and Cisco Systems won't be complete without them. For now, all the talk of FCoE, Data Center (or Enhanced) Ethernet and converged networks could make a storage manager's head spin. Not to mention the debate around whether 8Gb FC is worth the price or if it's better to wait for 10Gb Ethernet. And if Ethernet is the way to go, should it be via iSCSI or FCoE?
"It's probably overkill now," says Ed Delgado, storage administrator at financial services firm RiskMetrics Group, of the choices next-generation data centers will bring.
Delgado is considering upgrading from Brocade fabric switches to a director because his firm's EMC SAN keeps growing. But his more immediate concern is whether to
go to 4Gb or 8Gb FC instead of worrying about FCoE or converged networks.
"Most of our architecture is 2Gb," he says. "Four gig came out already, and now 8Gb is out. So, maybe let's just skip 4Gb and jump right to 8Gb."
FCoE probably won't become mainstream before 2010, but that hasn't stopped Brocade and Cisco from laying out their convergence visions.
From Brocade's perspective, the future is the DCX Backbone director. When two DCXes are trunked, you get an 896-port behemoth. The DCX supports Brocade's bread-and-butter FC (including 8Gb), as well as iSCSI, Gigabit Ethernet, Ficon and FC over IP.
Cisco counters with the Nexus platform, a larger version of its Ethernet Catalyst family. The first of these switches, the Nexus 7000, holds 512 ports for 10Gb Ethernet and 768 ports for 1Gb Ethernet, but has no FC capabilities yet.
The two major ingredients of both products are waiting on standards to be worked out. Data Center Ethernet is a spec in the works designed to avoid the dropped packets that prevent Ethernet from being used in most storage networks today. When FCoE is ready, Brocade's DCX and Cisco's Nexus switches will be able to integrate FC and Ethernet connectivity. But FCoE isn't expected to even start showing up until late 2008.
| 
