Storage traffic running over Ethernet-based networks has been around for as long as we have had Ethernet-based networks. Of course sometimes it is technically not accurate to think of the protocols as fundamentally Ethernet protocols – whilst FCoE, by definition, only runs on Ethernet, iSCSI, SMB, and NFS, they are, in reality, IP-based storage protocols and whilst most commonly run on Ethernet, could run on any network that supports IP. That notwithstanding, it is increasingly important to understand the real nature of Ethernet, and in particular, the nature of the new enhancements that we put under the umbrella of Data … Read the rest

I guess this is a blog that could either be very short or very long… The full name of the protocol – Data Center Bridging capability eXchange (DCBX) basically tells you all you need to know or maybe nothing at all. At its simplest, DCBX does what it says on the tin and the way it is in effect used is no more or less than the DCB auto negotiation capability to make sure that the data center network is correctly and consistently configured. It is important to note that technically you can debate if this is an auto negotiation … Read the rest