• A new protocol that maps Fibre
Channel protocol natively over Ethernet
>FCoE
allows the use of multi-function network/storage adapters called Converged
Network
• Based on two new standards that are
currently in active development:
–FCoE
standard, being developed by T11 Fibre
Channel Interfaces Technical Committee
–Enhanced
Ethernet standard, being developed by the Ethernet IEEE Data Center Bridging
Task Group
–Both
standards are expected to be ratified in 2009
• Enables
the consolidation of SAN traffic and Ethernet traffic onto a common 10 Gigabit
network infrastructure
FCoE: Benefits
–Dramatic reduction in the number of
adapters, switch ports and cables required
• Reduced
power and cooling requirement
• Enabler
for consolidated network infrastructure
–Potentially lower administration cost,
with convergence of LAN and SAN
–Effective sharing of high-bandwidth links
• Lower
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
>The
benefits of FCoE
include lower capital and operating costs, lower cooling requirement
and power
savings. This results in lower total cost of ownership.
>FCoE
enables input/output consolidation by allowing LAN and SAN traffic to converge
on a
single cable or link. It reduces the number of server cables, adapters and
switch ports in the
data center and greatly simplifies the physical
infrastructure. It also reduces the administrative
overhead and complexity
associated with managing the data center.
I/O
Consolidation with FCoE
>Today,
servers often use four, six or even eight network adapters. These adapters can
be two
Fibre
Channel host bus adapters, plus a pair of Network Interface Cards.
Adapters (CNA) consolidating both network and storage traffic. With
CNAs, there is no need
to deploy separate hardware and cables based upon
different traffic types, thereby reducing
the number of server slots and switch
ports, as well as power required for I/O and necessary
cooling.
FCoE - Physical Elements
The
CNA (Converged Network Adaptor) consolidates the data networking of a NIC card
with the storage networking of a Fibre
Channel HBA onto a single adapter.
It eliminates the need of separate interface cards for FC, IP network and it
consolidates the I/O onto a single 10 Gigbit Ethernet link .The internals of
the first generation CNAs include separate 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre
Channel and Menlo ASICs. The Menlo ASIC is used to encapsulate Fibre
Channel frames into Ethernet frames.
There
are two connectivity options: copper based Twinax and
standard optical. Copper-based Twinax cables are the cost effective
option. A Twinax
cable is composed of two pairs of copper cables that are covered with a
shielded casing. Each end of the Twinax
cable is terminated with an SFP and a GBIC.
Infrastructure
- Before FCoE
>Shown
is the topology of the current
infrastructure where LAN and SAN
are two
different networks. Storage
resources are accessible using HBAs
and network
resources that are
accessible using NICs by hosts.
Infrastructure
– With FCoE
>Shown
is the I/O consolidation with FCoE using FCoE
switches and CNAs. The FCoE switch passes Fibre
Channel traffic to the SAN, and the Ethernet traffic to an attached Ethernet
network.
>With FCoE, the
cable requirements from host to FCoE
switches can be substantially reduced, which in turn reduces the cooling costs,
management requirements, and the overall operational cost.
FCoE – Frame Structure
>Frame
size is also an important factor in FCoE. A
typical Fibre
Channel data frame has a
2112 byte payload, a header and an FCS. A classical
Ethernet frame is typically 1.5 KB or
less. FCoE
requires jumbo frames (2180-byte) support to prevent a Fibre
Channel frame from
being split into two Ethernet frames.
>FCoE can
not run on the existing customers production Ethernet network, like iSCSI. It
requires specific Ethernet extensions and Jumbo Frame support.