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FCoE Adapter Market Noise: Page 2 of 2

With a total of four vendors controlling the market, Fibre Channel products have remained expensive compared to the more competitive Ethernet market. Even worse, vendors are free to use proprietary extensions and hardware compatibility lists (HCLs) as tools for account control.

FCoE promises Fibre Channel management with Ethernet economics. To deliver on that promise we as customers have to resist the pressures from the entrenched Fibre Channel vendors to make FCoE a special case of FC where every switch, HBA/CNA/NIC and cable has to be on the HCL. Ethernet works because it's almost entirely interoperable. Yes, there are proprietary extensions, and sometimes good ones. If the market sees a proprietary extension, say EtherChannel bonding, a standard version (802.3ad) comes along soon enough.

Software FCoE initiators are hitting the market now. Today you can download either open FCoE for Linux and Starwind's FCoE initiator for Windows. NIC vendors from Broadcom and Neterion to Chelsio will soon have their own FCoE offloads. They can help make the FCoE market like the iSCSI market, where everyone assumes things will work and costs come down.