Storage > Fibre ChannelEssentials

This year's Storage Networking World Europe show focused attention on Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). However, while SAN vendors promoted FCoE as a way to extend Fibre Channel's reach and longevity, skeptics described it as unnecessary -- and perhaps even a Cisco-powered Trojan horse intended to wipe out rival networking supplier Brocade Communications.

EMC and NetApp pushed new Fibre Channel over Ethernet products at Storage Networking World in the US last week, but the technology may not gain mainstream adoption for more than a year.

Last week, while attending the Spring Storage Networking World in Orlando the big news was, believe it or not, storage networking. In this case, multiple vendors are touting Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) as storage networking's future.

EMC said Monday it will support a line of Emulex network adapters that use Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCOE), giving a big-name boost to an emerging technology that could become the common transport across an entire data center.

QLogic last week announced the availability of its 8Gbit/sec Fibre Channel switch and its companion 8Gbit/sec host bus adapter (HBA). QLogic's announcement followed one by Emulex last week, which released its LightPulse LPe12000 family of 8Gbit/sec HBAs.

At 104 kilos, the Brocade DCX Backbone would be on the lighter end of middle linebackers in the NFL, but it's well-built to fill the middle of a storage network. Unveiled in late January, the DCX represents the first deliverable of Brocade's DCF (Data Center Fabric), the company's newly designed architecture that promises a more flexible, easier-to-manage, policy-driven network, one that embraces multiple connectivity protocols and is better able to respond to applications' demands and to support new technologies such as server virtualization.