Fibre Channel over Ethernet is an emerging protocol that is creating a lot of buzz in the IT industry. Knowledge Center contributor Jay Kidd shares a quick overview of Fibre Channel over Ethernet and explains how it can improve the efficiency in your data center.
Fibre
Channel over Ethernet transports Fibre Channel frames over an Ethernet
fabric. This enables data centers to increase application performance
while simultaneously reducing cost, power and manageability tasks
by converging storage, networking and clustering data on a single
fabric.
There are six key benefits of FCoE:
Benefit No. 1: High-performance storage access over loss-less 10 Gigabit Ethernet fabrics
Benefit No. 2: Transparent access to storage devices using existing SAN (storage area network) management methods
Benefit No. 3: Retention of enterprise-proven Fibre Channel drivers and management tools
Benefit No. 4: Lower capital, energy and cooling costs with fewer adapters, cables and switches
Benefit No. 5: Lower management overhead by maintaining a single fabric
Benefit No. 6: Increased application availability by simplifying the network and server configuration
FCoE is the encapsulation of Fibre Channel in Ethernet
FCoE is an evolution of Fibre Channel that uses Fibre Channel's
network, service and protocol layers to carry data packets over
Ethernet's physical and data link layers. Using Fibre Channel's upper
layers simplifies FCoE deployment by allowing customers to leverage
enterprise-proven Fibre Channel software stacks, management tools and
trained administrators. Most importantly, no change is required for
mission-critical applications to benefit from the performance and cost
benefits of FCoE.
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