Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

  1. Home
  2. Data-centers
  3. Fcoe-isnt-just-another-protocol
  4. Page
  5. FCoE Isn't Just Another Protocol: Page 2 of 2
Data Centers

FCoE Isn't Just Another Protocol: Page 2 of 2

My esteemed colleague George Crump views FCoE as just another protocol you can run in your data center if you think it fits your needs, as opposed to what he says is the near religious movement that some vendors would lead you to believe it is. As an old network guy, I can't call an application that requires as many changes to the network itself as FCoE does.
Howard Marks
October 05, 2009

Since Cisco charges several thousand dollars for FCF functionality as a Nexus 5000 option, putting an FCF in every top of row switch isn't cost effective. As network designers use CEE/DCE switches without FCF functionality, they should pay careful attention to the additional load on ISLs to the FCF switch, as those links will carry more traffic than you might expect.

A proposal in the FC-BB-6 committee would add FC Proxy Points (FCPPs) to switches so they can enforce zoning without full FCF functionality, allowing traffic to flow over the shortest path in the Ethernet fabric. The problem is that means Ethernet switches with extended functionality, that unlike CEE, only enhance FCoE traffic.

If I had a suspicious mind, I could think this was all a conspiracy by the Fibre Channel mafia to continue to control the SAN switch market while using successful Ethernet brand.  After all how likely is it that Juniper, Extreme etc, will build FCPPs into their switches?  Maybe Dan Brown could write a book.

Tags:

Commentary
Data Centers
Networking