Storage Vendors Network for Ethernet
Storage Vendors Network for Ethernet
April 17, 2007: A number of storage vendors have come together to create a technology specification proposal for a Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoe) standard allowing storage networking technology to run over Ethernet.
The group including Cisco, EMC, IBM, Intel, QLogic, Brocade and Sun Microsystems have submitted their proposal to the American National Standards Institute. The Ethernet and Fibre Channel combination would provide a converged infrastructure for end-users looking to run their existing Fibre Channel SANs over Ethernet.
Similar to the iSCSI standard, rather than using TCO/IP protocol over Ethernet, FCoE uses Fibre Channel protocol over Ethernet to enable SAN traffic to be transported natively over Ethernet networks.
The vendors claim FCoE allows customers to protect their existing storage network investments and offer customers new choices for server connectivity in the data centre. Already popular with large enterprises, using Fibre Channel to connect storage devices to servers usually requires separate Fibre Channel infrastructure.