Tag: FCIA

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Despite being declared dead, Fibre Channel continues to evolve with FC-BB-6

Despite being declared dead, Fibre Channel continues to evolve with FC-BB-6

Like many technologies that have been around for more than a decade or two, they often get declared dead when something new appears and Fibre Channel (FC) for networking with your servers and storage falls into that category. It seems like just yesterday when iSCSI was appearing on the storage networking scene in the early 2000s that FC was declared dead yet it remains and continues to evolve including moving over Ethernet with FC over Ethernet (FCoE).

Recently the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) made an announcement on the continued development and enhancements including FC-BB-6 that applies to both "classic" or "legacy" FC as well as the newer and emerging FCoE implementations. FCIA is not alone in the FCIA activity as they are as the name implies the industry consortium that works with the T11 standards folks. T11 is a Technical Committee of the International Committee on Information Technology Standards (INCITS, pronounced "insights").

FCIA Fibre Channel Industry Association

Keep in mind that a couple of pieces to Fibre Channel which are the upper levels and lower level transports.

With FCoE, the upper level portions get mapped natively on Ethernet without having to map on top of IP as happens with distance extension using FCIP.

Likewise FCoE is more than simply mapping one of the FC upper level protocols (ULPs) such as the SCSI command set (aka SCSI_FCP) on IP (e.g. iSCSI). Think of ULPs almost in a way as a guest that gets transported or carried across the network, however lets also be careful not to play the software defined network (SDN) or virtual network, network virtualization or IO virtualization (IOV) card, or at least yet, we will leave that up to some creative marketers ;).

At the heart of the Fibre Channel beyond the cable and encoding scheme are a set of protocols, command sets and one in particular is FC Backbone now in its 6th version (read more here at the T11 site, or here at the SNIA site).

Some of the highlights of the FCIA announcement include:

VN2VN connectivity support enabling direct point to point virtual links (not to be confused with point to point physical cabling) between nodes in an FCoE network simplifying configurations for smaller SAN networks where zoning might not be needed (e.g. remove complexity and cost).

Support for Domain ID scalability including more efficient use by FCoE fabrics enabling large scalability of converged SANs. Also keep an eye on the emerging T11 FC-SW-6 distributed switch architecture for implementation over Ethernet in final stages of development.

Here are my perspectives on this announcement by the FCIA:

"Fibre Channel is a proven protocol for networked data center storage that just got better," said Greg Schulz, founder StorageIO.  "The FC-BB-6 standard helps to unlock the full potential of the Fibre Channel protocol that can be implemented on traditional Fibre Channel as well as via Ethernet based networks. This means FC-BB-6 enabled Fibre Channel protocol based networks give flexibility, scalability and secure high-performance resilient storage networks to be implemented."

Both "classic" or "legacy" Fibre Channel based cabling and networking are still alive with a road map that you can view here.

However FCoE also continues to mature and evolve and in some ways, FC-BB-6 and its associated technologies and capabilities can be seen as the bridge between the past and the future. Thus while the role of both FC and FCoE along with other ways of of networking with your servers and storage continue to evolve, so to does the technology. Also keep in mind that not everything is the same in the data center or information factory which is why we have different types of server, storage and I/O networks to address different needs, requirements and preferences.

Additional reading and viewing on FC, FCoE and storage networking::

  • Where has the FCoE hype and FUD gone? (with poll)
  • More storage and IO metrics that matter
  • Why FC and FCoE vendors get beat up over bandwidth?
  • Is FCoE Struggling to Gain Traction, or on a normal adoption course?
  • Has FCoE entered the trough of disillusionment?
  • More on Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) which points to this PDF
  • Will 6Gb SAS kill Fibre Channel?
  • From bits to bytes: Decoding Encoding
  • How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do?
  • Can we get a side of context with them IOPS and other storage metrics?
  • Server Storage I/O Network Benchmark Winter Olympic Games
  • Is FCoE Struggling to Gain Traction, or on a normal adoption course?
  • SAN, LAN, MAN, WAN, POTS and PANs – Network servers and storage beyond the cable (BrightTalk webinar)
  • Networking With Your Servers and Storage: Cloud, Virtual and Physical Environments (BrightTalk webinar)
  • Cloud and Virtual Storage Networking (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
  • Also check out these tips and articles, industry trends perspectives commentary in the news along with past and upcoming event activities.

    Ok, nuff said (for now)

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    • Posted on

    Cisco wins FCoE Pre-Season and Primaries – Now for the Main Event!

    Storage I/O trends

    Ok, unless you have turned off all of your news feeds, RSS feeds, discontinued all printed industry and trade related publications and stopped visiting blogs and other on-line venues, you may not have heard that Cisco, NetApp, EMC, Emulex and Qlogic have made a series of announcements signaling proof of life for the emerging Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) based on the Cisco Data Center Ethernet (DCE) or on the emerging more general Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE).

    Now if you have not heard, check out the various industry news and information venues and blogs. Likewise if you are a Brocadian, dont worry and do not get upset by the early poll or exit poll results from the primaries, the real and broad adoption game has not started yet, however, get your game faces on.

    At this point given the newness of the technology and early adopter status, its safe to say that Cisco has won the pre-season or primaries for the first FCoE battle. However, despite the hype and proof of life activity which can be gauged by the counter claims from the iSCSI camps, the main event or real market adoption and deployment will start ramping up in 2009 and with broader adoption occurring in the 2010 to 2011 timeframes.

    This is not to say that there will not be any adoption of FCoE between now and the next 12-18 months, quite the opposite, there will be plenty of early adopters, test and pilot cases as well as Cisco faithful who chose to go the FCoE route vs. another round of Fibre Channel at 8Gb, or, for those who want to go to FCoE at 10Gb instead of iSCSI or NAS at 10GbE for what ever reasons. However the core target market for FCoE is the higher-end, risk adverse environments that shy away from bleeding edge technology unless there is an adjacent and fully redundant blood bank located next door if not on-site.

    Consequently similar how Fibre Channel and FICON were slow to ramp-up taking a couple of years from first product and components availability, FCoE will continue to gain ground and as the complete and open ecosystem comes into place including adapters, switches and directors, routers, bridges and gateways, storage systems as well as management tools and associated training and skills development.

    Watch for vendors to ratchet up discussions about how many FCoE or FCoE enabled systems are shipped with an eye on the keyword, FCoE enabled which means that the systems may or may not actually be deployed in FCoE mode, rather that they are ready for it, sound familiar to early iSCSI or event FC product shipments?

    Rest assured, FCoE has a very bright future (see here and here) at the mid to high-end of the market while iSCSI will continue to grow and gain in adoption in the mid-market down to the lower reaches of the SMB market. Of course there will be border skirmishes as iSCSI tries to move up market and FCoE tries to move down market and of course there will be those that stay the course for another round of Fibre Channel beyond 8Gb while NAS continues to gain ground in all market segments and SAS at the very low-end where even iSCSI is to expensive. Learn more over at the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) or FCoE Portal sites as well as at Brocade, Cisco, EMC, Emulex, NetApp and Qlogic sites among others.

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved