Around the Storage Block Blog : FCoE

FCoE...it's almost time to get moving!

Sean Fitz — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:48:00 GMT

by Sean Fitzpatrick, StorageWorks Storage Platforms Business Development

Over the past few months, we've all witnessed positive milestones for FCoE...but...is it ready?

This past June the Fibre Channel Standards T11.3 BB-5 (back bone) working group finalized defining the spec (or ratified) and voted to forward it to INCITS for public review and eventually publication next year. Is the BB-5 spec good enough to develop product? Absolutely!

Also in June HP announced the availability of two ToR (top of rack) FCoE switches from Brocade and Cisco. Other companies have also announced future availability of FCoE products. This is positive move in the right direction for the industry and for customers looking to lower the TCO over time.

More resources and tools are available today from Brocade, Cisco, Emulex and QLogic to assist with evaluation and planning. HP's own SAN Design Guide provides great design ideas on how to build or modify existing SANs, including a dedicated application note on FCoE implementation guidelines.

As I've stated before, this stage is very important part of the early adopter Phase I to allow customers to evaluate the technology. The real adoption has yet to develop (phase II) and it will, once additional mature products become available. In the mean time IT managers should investigate adopting FCoE for small pilot projects and focusing on how it's going to improve their overall TCO.

From a timeline perspective 2009 is the year for proof of concept and planning. In 2010 I'm anticipating a wider breath of product availability from all the major suppliers.

HP's position is FCoE won't overtake traditional Fibre Channel next week, or even next year. But, now that FCoE is starting to move, it's getting exciting.

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FCoE On your mark...get set...Go! (Part 2)

sean fitzpatrick — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:52:00 GMT

-by Sean Fitzpatrick

Now that we are on the roller coaster of hype, what is the next cycle for FCoE?

I would argue that we are still in the first cycle of its adoption.

If you’re a student of Geoffrey Moore’s Technology-Adoption Life Cycle model; the first logical event is to create and gain market interest or early market. For the sake of argument, I’m calling it ‘hype’ or the same feeling you get when you see a new shinny new penny. After the penny is passed around and the shine wares off, the next logical cycle is early adopters.

But how can you adopt a technology when the products are close to production ready, but not customer ready?

In my opinion, production ready is something that can be consistently duplicated through a defined manufacturing process. At this stage, not all the kinks have been worked out, it doesn’t have to be automated, the products are generation one (Gen 1), alpha or beta versions. Components and labor costs are high, economies of scale are not a concern and quality isn’t the most important output process.

Most of the products available today are not what I would call ‘customer ready.’ I define customer ready as a product that has been tested and qualified, supported by a minimum of one operating system, has a set configuration minimum/maximum parameters, can sustain a light to medium work load, and has an errata list of non-supported features / capabilities. Depending on your own criteria’s it may fall into an Alpha or Beta candidates.

So just where is FCoE and how should I be planning?

I’m going to go out on a limb and try to group the adoption phases of FCoE over the next 3-5 years. As a reference, look back at the history of iSCSI and its life cycle from late 90’s to today. If we learned anything over the years, nothing moves as fast as we would like it to.

From my perspective, 2008 through mid-2009 is about understanding the benefits, limitations, expectations and time will be spent exploring use case scenarios. This is an excellent time to look at Gen 1 product and do some planning for your next data center refresh or new installations.

Late 2009 through 2010, second generation products start to take shape and economies of scale start to show up, Geoffrey More said; ‘Innovation is valuable only if it helps us achieve economic advantage.’ If FCoE is going to become mainstream, there are two hurdles that have to become reality; 1) Lower customer TCO and 2) IT resources (Network, Server, Storage) teams have to learn new ways of working across functions.

Beyond 2011 really depends on how the first couple of years unfold. These first years will set the stage for market acceptance, use case scenarios and follow on technology innovations.

FCoE…On your mark…get set…Go!

BlogArchive — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:41:00 GMT

-by Sean Fitzpatrick

The industry is buzzing about Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and what its impact may or may not have on iSCSI and network convergence. Initially there were some skeptics in the press like the story from Howard Marks FCoE: The Latest Standard We Don’t Need. But now it seems the tides are turning as you can read about some of the activity on the FCoE website. Putting initial total cost of ownership (TCO) discussions aside; the technology has merit and worth looking at as a catalyst to network convergence and maybe some day replacing iSCSI.

FCoE is an emerging technology that isn’t new but rather revitalized from the work being done in the IEEE (Ethernet) and T11 / Fibre Channel Industry Association. Two improvements have been made to Ethernet include; 1) lossless Ethernet and 2) pause-base flow control. In the late 90’s these two enhancements were not available, hence why we ended up with iSCSI.

FCoE encapsulates Fibre Channel over an Ethernet transport combining the two technologies. In a real application environment, it makes good sense to leverage one common FCoE connection between the server and network enabling new networking options. The good news is FCoE will utilize the same common driver stacks, cabling and management applications you’re already used to dealing with today.

On the other side of the story, iSCSI requires the use of TCP/IP and as we all know has the tendency to drop data packets, unlike FC. Plus, you will take a performance through put hit because of TCP overhead. If you’re deploying iSCSI today you know it requires its own software and management tools separate from networking apps. Because of these characteristics, iSCSI is not suitable for enterprise data centers; rather it is relegated to non-SAN remote storage, stranded storage (i.e. DAS) or small-medium business segments.

It’s anyone’s guess how long it will take for the adoption to take hole, we believe the market will eventually decide the fate of iSCSI or success of FCoE, with a little help of course. If we’ve learned anything from past experience, two things need to happen in order for FCoE to become viable alternative for iSCSI; 1) near cost parity and 2) sustained growth adoption. The premise of converged networks is to help drive out some implementation costs, examples; less adapters, optics, cables will help reduce overall power consumption. This all translates into a much greener environment. HP believes for the foreseeable future (1-3yrs) these two protocols will co-exist, and in or around 2010-11 we should start to see one of them gain more ground over the other.

By comparison:

FCoE will scale, where iSCSI is stuck.

FCoE will be lossless, where iSCSI is not.

FCoE will leverage common management, where iSCSI will always be unique.

FCoE performance is suitable for enterprise data centers, where iSCSI is not.

HP likes the new possibilities FCoE offers to enable network convergence. FCoE has potential to scale in most IT environment from small-medium-enterprise utilizing the same physical Ethernet layer and common management applications in use today. It’s too early to tell, but iSCSI and FCoE will co-exist initially. Once near cost parity is reached…will there be much reason to continue iSCSI?