Cisco, VMware and NetApp release the first end-to-end FCoE

Network, storage, and virtualization vendors Cisco, NetApp, and VMware have recently unveiled their first certified End-to-end FCoE storage network, primarily for VMware server environments.

"This means to users that they can build a consolidated datacenter architecture that can load servers and virtual machines onto any type of storage device, whether in FCoE or native Fibre Channel, NAS or iSCSI," said Soni Jiandani, vice president of Cisco server access to virtualization. All through a unified architecture. ”

Jiandani says this consolidation architecture for a virtual server environment, generated by a FCoE network, can be cost-efficient. For example, an enterprise can save about 40% of the network cost by using a 10Gb Ethernet (rather than a local fibre Channel switch) and adapter for storage transmission, "while maintaining their current investment in the infrastructure".

For example, the University of Arizona in the United States installed a unified FCoE network, and said they have cut operating costs as high as 50%.

The FCOE protocol encapsulates fibre channel packets in IP headers, sends them over a traditional Ethernet network, and retains the Ethernet Fibre Channel protocol. Typically, because it is a shared bandwidth transfer with a traditional server, the FCoE system works with a 10Gb Ethernet port configuration.

As a network protocol, Ethernet is less robust than fibre Channel, which provides reliability and the ability to quickly transfer block data from the server to an external storage array. Because Ethernet itself has a problem with packet loss, many vendors have submitted their recommendations to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (electrical and electronics engineers,ieee) to enhance the reliability of Ethernet for Fibre Channel data transmission.

"This is nothing new with our company reselling other manufacturers ' products," says Jim Sangster, NetApp virtualization Solution and Alliance senior director. This is the total end-to-end support that three of our manufacturers have been studying for some time. ”

The key technology of the converged network system is VMware's vsphere virtualization software, which has been certified to work with the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch and the NetApp FAS series Unified Storage Array. These networks also use Converged network adapters (CNA) from QLogic to aggregate fibre Channel packets into IP packets at the host server level.

Some time ago, QLogic, a spokesman for Steve Zivanic, said Oracle had recently begun labeling QLogic 8100 series CNA to build their own FCoE aggregation network. Oracle now offers FCOE switches from brocade.

QLogic does not provide a stand-alone FCOE switch and provides only FCoE exchange ASIC. But QLogic plans to provide FCOE switches of different sizes soon.

"The point is, this is the first time we've heard of Oracle providing FCoE or aggregation networks," Zivanic says. We've heard about their software, hardware, database servers, and storage, but now we know that aggregation network components are also part of their product. ”

FCoE is a unique protocol that uses TCP/IP to send block-level packets over Ethernet to directly challenge iSCSI. Typically, iSCSI is used to consolidate storage as a Wintel server farm because of its cheapness, but it is not as fast or reliable as a native fibre channel. By contrast, FCoE is designed to replace the TCP/IP stack required by iSCSI, which provides a unified network of common servers and data storage transmissions using a single cable in the datacenter.

Cisco's Nexus 5,000 multi-protocol storage switch has 56 ports that are capable of directing Fibre Channel and Ethernet transmission.

Wikibon analyst and researcher Stu Miniman questions about the extent to which NetApp and Cisco claim to have the first end-to-end solution FCoE for VMware server environments.

"I doubt how much this configuration would mean to be a test environment," Miniman wrote in his blog. If a configuration is small enough for a top-shelf switch to support this solution, then what is the reason for NetApp users to choose FCoE? ”

Miniman said it was "more interesting" for converged networks, and the core Nexus 7000 switch needed that combination.

Cisco's live Users conference, held last month, said it planned to start offering FCoE support in Nexus 7000 in the next quarter of 2010.

"In any case, the ecosystem of Ethernet storage is still growing," says Miniman. By the end of 2010 or 2011, there will be an actual end-to-end FCoE solution to begin deployment. ”