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Open-Sourcing Fibre Channel over EthernetDATE: 19-DEC-2007 Intel wants to revolutionize data center and storage area networking with open-source Fibre Channel over Ethernet.
Odds are most of us will never need the network throughput speeds of 2GB Fibre Channel or iSCSI or 10GB Ethernet.But, if you're working at a data center with hundreds to thousands of servers, clusters and terabyte-sized databases, then every millisecond matters. This is why Intel is promoting a new, fast way of transporting data: FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) for Linux.FCoE's purpose is to enable data centers to consolidate LAN and SAN (storage area network) traffic over 10GB Ethernet. FC, which comes in speeds from 2 to the just arriving 8G bps, is commonly used in data center SANs. In recent years it's been challenged by iSCSI. Fibre, which, despite the name can run both on copper and fiber-optic cables, is seen as faster and more reliable, while iSCSI is commonly thought of as less expensive. Intel, along with FCoE's founder Cisco Systems, is hoping to combine the virtues of both Fibre and iSCSI with this new high-speed, dual-purpose network fabric. In addition, by making it possible to use FCoE for both LAN and SAN traffic, the companies want to gain customers who want to simplify their data center network management. To help this happen, Intel has released the first FCoE code for Linux under the GPLv2 on the Open-FCoE site. This code is barely out of alpha. It can only run reliably, according to the Open-FCoE site, on a generic 2.6.23 Linux kernel. The installation instructions are optimized for Fedora 7 systems. In its current state, the code is only capable of some FC protocol processing and encapsulating FC frames in Ethernet packets. Unlike iSCSI, FCoE does not run on the TCP/IP stack. This is Fibre Channel on Ethernet without the overhead or the management and analysis tools of TCP/IP. Early days or not, Intel and Cisco are expecting great things from FCoE. "Fibre Channel over Ethernet will be a key capability for our customers, offering seamless server and storage access in the data center," said Jayshree Ullal, Cisco's senior vice president of the data center, switching and services group, in a statement. "The emergence of 10 Gigabit Ethernet bandwidth combined with Cisco's proposed extensions to Ethernet, enables a lossless and resilient fabric for data center I/O consolidation."Will Intel and Cisco's hopes be realized? According to Dan Kusnetzky, principal analyst of the Kusnetzky Group, in an interview, it all depends on the fundamentals: "1) Price—will this approach cost more, in the end, than acquiring some other technology? 2) support—who do organizations or suppliers turn to for support? Can they get a contract for on-site, immediate support? And 3) ecosystem—who has agreed to build upon this specification? If there is no community, no products, there will be no interest."Page 2: Open-Sourcing Fibre Channel over Ethernet
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