Previously, I’ve blogged about the VN2VN (virtual node to virtual node) technology coming with the new T11-FC-BB6 specification. In a nutshell, VN2VN enables an “all Ethernet” FCoE network, eliminating the requirement for an expensive Fibre Channel Forwarding (FCF) enabled switch. VN2VN dramatically lowers the barrier of entry for deploying FCoE. Host software is available to support VN2VN, but so far only one major SAN vendor supports VN2VN today. The ecosystem is coming, but are there more immediate alternatives for deploying FCoE without an FCF-enabled switch or VN2VN-enabled target SANs? The answer is that full FC-BB5 FCF services could be provided … Read the rest

Our VN2VN Webcast last week was extremely well received. The audience was big and highly engaged. Here is a summary of the questions attendees asked and answers from my colleague, Joe White, and me. If you missed the Webcast, it’s now available on demand.

Question #1:

We are an extremely large FC shop with well over 50K native FC ports. We are looking to bridge this to the FCoE environment for the future. What does VN2VN buy the larger company? Seems like SMB is a much better target for this.

Answer #1: It’s true that for large port count SAN … Read the rest

I’ve gotten some interesting feedback on my recent 10GBASE-T blog, “How is 10GBASE-T Being Adopted and Deployed.” It’s prompted us at the ESF to learn more about your 10BASE-T plans. Please let us know by taking our 3-question poll. I’ll share the results in a future blog post.

The completion of a specification for FCoE (T11 FC-BB-5, 2009) held great promise for unifying storage and LAN over a unified Ethernet network, and now we are seeing the benefits. With FCoE, Fibre Channel protocol frames are encapsulated in Ethernet packets. To achieve the high reliability and “lossless” characteristics of Fibre Channel, Ethernet itself has been enhanced by a series of IEEE 802.1 specifications collectively known as Data Center Bridging (DCB). DCB is now widely supported in enterprise-class Ethernet switches. Several major switch vendors also support the capability known as Fibre Channel Forwarding (FCF) which can de-encapsulate /encapsulate the Fibre … Read the rest

For nearly a decade, the primary deployment of 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) has been using network interface cards (NICs) supporting enhanced Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP+) transceivers. The predominant transceivers for 10GbE are Direct Attach (DA) copper, short range optical (10GBASE-SR), and long-range optical (10GBASE-LR). The Direct Attach copper option is the least expensive of the three. However, its adoption has been hampered by two key limitations:

- DA’s range is limited to 7m, and

- because of the SFP+ connector, it is not backward-compatible with existing 1GbE infrastructure using RJ-45 connectors and twisted-pair cabling.

10GBASE-T addresses both of these limitations.… Read the rest

Our recent Webcast: Flash – Plan for the Disruption was very well received and well attended. We thank everyone who was able to make the live event. For those of you who couldn’t make it, it’s now available on demand. Check it out here.

There wasn’t enough time to respond to all of the questions during the Webcast, so we have consolidated answers to all of them in this blog post from the presentation team. Feel free to comment and provide your input.

Q. Are you going to cache both read and writes in NetApp FlashCache?
A. Flash Cache … Read the rest

There’s no doubt that flash is a game changer. Even a relatively small percentage of flash can drive a significant improvement in peak storage performance. How are you planning for the disruption? Join me and my SNIA colleague, Paul Feresten, for a live Webcast next week, Thursday, September 20th (11:00 a.m. ET, 8:00 am. PT) as we discuss the impact of flash. We’ll take a look at how flash is being deployed in storage systems, key considerations and tradeoffs, performance benefits, trends in non-volatile memory and more. And because it’s live we’ll take your questions on the spot. We hope … Read the rest

10GBASE-T is a technology that runs 10Gb Ethernet over familiar Category 6/6a cables for distances up to 100m and is terminated by the ubiquitous RJ-45 jack. Till now, most datacenter copper cabling has been special Direct Attach cables for distances up to 7m terminated by an SFP+ connector. To work, data center switches need matching SFP+ connectors, meaning new switches are required for any data center making the move from 1GbE to 10GbE. 10GBASE-T is generating a lot of interest in 2012 as the first single-chip implementations at lower power (fanless) and lower cost (competitive with Direct Attach NICs) come … Read the rest