Ethernet, which had a limited presence in the storage arena, suddenly emerged as a stronger option for data center storage networks. The Fibre Channel Industry Association, which has been driving Fibre Channel's future, helped drive development of the Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) standard using 10-Gbps Ethernet. A key reason for this is changing data center designs.
Many companies find themselves with hundreds or thousands of servers and a hodgepodge of storage systems. New unified computing platforms are emerging that support server, storage, and networking functions. Rather than purchase separate connectivity devices and cabling for each type of device, companies can collapse all of these functions into one multi-purpose box and run their data and storage traffic over a single network. Simpler management is another plus with this approach -- corporations in theory can operate one management system and control all of their devices rather than running a number of different applications.
Ethernet has emerged as stiff competition as this transformation starts to take hold. "There is a tremendous amount of interest in Fiber Channel over Ethernet at the moment," says Bob Laliberte, an analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. Ethernet already dominates the desktop and has become a key player in wide-area networks. Meanwhile, Fibre Channel has garnered little acceptance outside of the SAN.
Vendors as well as corporations have been trying to determine what impact the development of FCoE may have on conventional Fibre Channel sales. It seems like some vendors diverted funding from their Fibre Channel products to FCoE development. As a result, corporations are finding support for some of the necessary components is missing as they try to deploy end-to-end 8G Fiber Channel connections.
In addition, Fibre Channel is used for some of the largest and most important applications run by enterprises. Consequently, they will need to be sure that there is a simple migration path from Fiber Channel to FCoE. Currently, FCoE products are still more in the development than the production phase, so how clean the transition will be is unclear.
