Fibre Channel SANS running over Ethernet on Linux?
Fibre Channel SANS running over Ethernet on Linux?
December 19, 2007: Processing giant, Intel has released an open-source software package aiming to assist the development of the Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) specification
The FCoE project is aiming to open the specification up for use on Linux platforms by allowing fibre channel based Storage Area Networks (SAN’s) to use Ethernet connections to transmit data in addition to its inherent fibre links. Intel hopes that by consolidating LAN and SAN traffic into a single channel, FCoE will simplify network infrastructure in the datacentre.
Intel’s open-source contribution to the FCoE project is available at the Open-FCoE project website and is being released under the Gnu Public License v2. Open-FCoE allows developers to access the source code directly as well as contribute and provide feedback as part of the community.
"Server virtualization, database growth and compliance requirements have created a greater need for network storage," said Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manger of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group.
“We expect the open source community to use this initiator stack to create reliable, standards-based FCoE solutions”
The initial FCoE proposal was actually submitted by Cisco Systems, who approached the fibre channel standards body known as T11 with the idea in April.
"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. Cisco is pleased to see Intel taking a leadership role in FCoE." said Jayshree Ullal, senior vice president of the Data Center, Switching and Services Group at Cisco Systems.