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Where Is Intel's FCoE Solution?: Page 2 of 2

Intel's strategy makes perfect sense for a processor manufacturer, and there are technical arguments to be made for keeping network processing close to the core. But data center architects are driven to feed the hypervisor, and Intel's competitors have a compelling tale to tell. Right now, Intel is defenseless in this argument, since it does not even support VMware. But even an OpenFCoE driver will not eliminate the CPU offload argument.

Where is Intel's FCoE solution for virtual servers? I talked to Intel's Sunil Ahluwalia about this last week, and here's the scoop: The chip-and-networking powerhouse has nothing to offer ESX shops right now, but it's coming. Although its software-based OpenFCoE solution is an interesting alternative to the offload hardware from the Fibre Channel crowd, Intel only supports Windows and Linux at this point. OpenFCoE for ESX was demonstrated at VMworld 2010 (and will be shown again this week at VMware Partner Exchange), but it's not generally available yet.

One option is running the OpenFCoE drivers in the (Windows or Linux) guest OS, but this is hardly satisfying. As vendors increasingly integrate their offerings with vCenter and advanced features offered by the VAAI APIs, passing storage I/O through to the guest is decidedly not state-of-the-art. Plus, the ESX vSwitch is not lossless, so OpenFCoE running in the guest OS is a recipe for disaster. VMware administrators should never even consider this option.

Instead, Intel wants VMware administrators to wait a bit until an official OpenFCoE solution is launched by VMware for ESX. This might happen this week, or it might happen later this year, but you can count on it happening soon. At that point, QLogic, Emulex and Brocade will face a formidable new competitor in the FCoE CNA market for VMware.