Fast Guide: Advanced Fibre Channel

Strategies

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• Which switches to consider for iSCSI SANs
  Thinking about switches and iSCSI SANs? Take a look at the Ask the Expert Q&A and let Chris Poelker helps you determine the options.


• How to choose the best switch for your SAN or LAN
  Find out how to determine which switch best suits your needs as well as questions to ask prospective vendors.


• Technologies for scaling beyond a single fabric
  A key technology for enabling storage networks to span single fabrics and locations is a storage network router.


• User dumps Fibre Channel for ATA
  Expedient swaps out an EMC Symmetrix for a Nexsan ATA array and claims it has seen no performance degradation.


• Navigating the new drives
  Keeping track of disk technology used to be easy: Each year, you could count on capacities to go up, performance to improve and drives to become more reliable. But those metrics don't apply to what's happening today.


• Overseas IT powerhouse bails on Fibre Channel
  A large IT service provider in Europe running systems for over 80 banks has deployed an EqualLogic iSCSI SAN and is retiring Fibre Channel.

Cost concerns

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• SAN-in-a-box: Fibre Channel performance at iSCSI prices?
  SAN kits for SMBs may provide a viable alternative to IP-based technologies ... provided that they can deliver FC performance at something approaching iSCSI ease-of-use.


• ISCSI bites into the price of Fibre Channel
  In this interview, Randy Kerns, senior partner with the Evaluator Group shares some common misconceptions about iSCSI.


• Can cheap Fibre Channel HBAs stave off iSCSI
  Fibre Channel SANs are everywhere in enterprise data centers, but complexity and price have kept them out of the small-to-medium-sized enterprise .


• Firm to offer low-cost iSCSI controller, HBAs
  Moving storage with the iSCSI protocol has been heralded as easier and cheaper than constructing a Fibre Channel (FC) SAN. But is iSCSI as cheap as vendors claim, or does it come closer to a FC price tag than they would have you believe?


• Deals abound for high-end storage
  Think high-end storage is out of your reach? Maybe not. Conversations with several storage buyers recently suggest that vendors are scrambling to give buyers the best possible deals.

Working with FC

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• How is FC-AL implemented in loop switch?
  This is a Q&A from SAN School Lesson 5 addressing the question, "how is FC-AL implemented in loop switch?"


• SAN road map: How to scale beyond a single fabric
  Determine whether you need to scale your SAN beyond a single fabric or device, and which technology to use for the job.


• Creating an iSCSI SAN using only Ethernet switches
  Have you been wondering if it's mandatory to support jumbo frames to get better performance? Find out what expert Chris Poelker has to on the subject.


• Can we use CAT 5 cabling to assign an IP?
  Find out if you can connect a CAT 5 cable to the SAN switch in order to assign an IP?


• ISCSI and FC tools where are you?
  When it comes to Fibre Channel and iSCSI, emotions often run high. Many in the industry are strong proponents of one protocol and highly critical of the other.

Protocols

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• Managing iSCSI/FCIP SANS with SRM/HSM products
  Take a look here and find out which SRM/HSM products can be used to manage an iSCSI/FCIP SAN.


• What will it be, iSCSI or iFCP?
  This is a Q&A from SAN School Lesson 8, addressing the question, "if iSCSI can map FC to IP, why should I use iFCP?"


• iFCP networking best practices
  From SAN School Lesson 8 with Chris Poelker, find out what the best iFCP networking practice is.


• How FC-AL and FC-SW switches are implemented
  This is a Q&A from SAN School Lesson 2 addressing the questions, "how is FC-AL implemented in switches? What is the difference between FC-AL and FC-SW in switches? "

The future

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• Where Fibre Channel is headed
  The near future will see a lot of confusion in Fibre Channel bandwidth options, with 4, 8 and ultimately 10 GB coming on the market. At the same time, host bust adapter (HBA) prices are under pressure. Find out what's being done to improve HBA manageability and interoperability.


• The slow move toward faster Fibre
  Hungry for faster Fibre Channel? Four Gbps will have to hold you for now.


• What's an intelligent switch
  Check in with expert Greg Schulz and get the lowdown on intelligent switches.


• 4 GB – Ready or not, here it comes
  Next year, 4Gb/sec Fibre Channel (FC) products will start to roll out. These products will double the performance of 2Gb/sec gear for the same price, although the earliest adopters will probably pay a small premium until the full economies of large-scale chip production kick in.

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