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Getting Fired Up Over FCOE: Page 3 of 4

The exec also challenged Brocade’s comments about the cost benefits of FCOE, claiming that the technology has a competitive TCO.

”[If] You’re cutting by 50 percent the amount of cabling and the amount of adapters, then you have a very compelling TCO,” she said, adding that the Nexus 5000 has pushed the cost of 10-Gbit/s Ethernet down to $900 a port.

A number of vendors, including Intel, Emulex, QLogic, and NetApp are already offering FCOE products, although many users are awaiting full ratification of the FCOE standard, which should happen by the end of this year.

Almost half of the IT managers polled by Byte and Switch earlier this year said that they are waiting for full standardization of the FCOE specs before deploying the technology, with only 19 percent prepared to start now.

Despite this degree of caution, almost three quarters of respondents said that they are interested in FCOE, although 59 percent expect that the technology will have hidden costs.