Category: FCoE
Ethernet versus FC: surfer versus banker
It looks like everyone (and their dog) is writing about DCB and FCoE these days, but occasionally we get a fresh thought: Ron Fuller compares FC/Ethernet to East/West coast mentality. Great analogy ;)
FCoE Quote-of-the-Day
“Use FC where you feel you need to, use Ethernet (NFS, CIFS, iSCSI) everywhere else -- and save money and effort in the process”
Etherealmind and myself have been singing this song for quite some time (probably upsetting a few people working for my favorite vendor), but this time it comes straight from EMC’s CTO. And he didn’t even mention FCoE in his list of storage protocols.
What exactly is a Nexus 4000?
Someone mentioned a while ago in a comment to one of my blog posts that the Nexus 4000 switch already supports multihop FCoE. Now that we know what multihop FCoE really is, let’s see how Nexus 4000 fits into the picture.
The Cisco Nexus 4000 Series Design Guide starts with a confusing set of claims:
- The Cisco Nexus 4000 Series Switches provide the Fibre Channel Forwarder (FCF) function.
- Nexus 4000 is a FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP) snooping bridge.
Multihop FCoE 102: VN_port proxy and FIP snooping
A few weeks ago I wrote about the multihop FCoE basics and the two fundamentally different ways an FCoE network could be designed: FCoE on every switch or FCoE on the edges with DCB-extended bridging in the middle.
There are two other configurations you’ll likely see in access parts of an FCoE network: FCoE VN_port proxying and FIP snooping.
Storage networking is like SNA
I’m writing this post while travelling to the Net Field Day 2010, the successor to the awesome Tech Field Day 2010 during which the FCoTR technology was launched. It’s thus only fair to extend that fantastic merger of two technologies we all love, look at the bigger picture and compare storage networking with SNA.
Notes:
- If you’re too young to understand what I’m talking about, don’t worry. Yes, you’ve missed all the beauties of RSRB/DLSw, CIP, APPN/APPI and the likes, but major technology shifts happen every other decade or so, so you’ll be able to use FC/FCoE/iSCSI analogies the next time (and look like a dinosaur to the rookies). Make sure, though, that you read the summary.
- I’ll use present tense throughout the post when comparing both environments although SNA should be mostly history by now.
Multihop FCoE 101
The FCoE confusion spread by networking vendors has reached new heights with contradictory claims that you need TRILL to run multihop FCoE (or maybe you don’t) and that you don’t need congestion control specified in 802.1Qau standard (or maybe you do). Allow me to add to your confusion: they are all correct ... depending on how you implement FCoE.
FCoE and DCB standards
The debate whether the DCB standards are complete or not and thus whether FCoE is a standard-based technology are entering the metaphysical space (just a few more blog posts and they will join the eternal angels-on-a-hairpin problem), but somehow the vendors are not yet talking about the real issues: when will we see the standards implemented in shipping products and will there be a need to upgrade the hardware.
Read more ... (yet again @ etherealmind.com)