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1,031 Views 3 Replies Last post: Jun 30, 2009 2:47 PM by Andrew Miller RSS
minaeng NetApp Employee Enthusiast
minaeng
7 posts since
Mar 25, 2008
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Jun 24, 2009 3:20 PM

How do FCoE and iSCSI Fit into Your Storage Strategy?

The arrival of FCoE makes it possible to meet all your storage and LAN networking needs with a single Ethernet fabric. However, it may also create some confusion because now you have both iSCSI and FCoE as viable options for Ethernet SANs. In the June issue of Tech OnTap, Silvano Gai of Cisco and Mike McNarmara of NetApp wrote an article that describes the differences between the two protocols with some guidelines for when you might choose one versus the other. They go on to discuss a variety of deployment scenarios and indicate which protocol is most appropriate for each scenario.

 

You can check out the article at http://www.netapp.com/us/communities/tech-ontap/tot-fcoe-iscsi-0906.html

 

What are your plans for FCoE? Given a choice, would you opt for FCoE or iSCSI? In what scenarios?

 

Tags: ethernet, san, iscsi, farbic, protocol, fcoe, ethernet, san, iscsi, farbic, protocol, fcoe
BrendonHiggins Guru
BrendonHiggins
477 posts since
Mar 26, 2008
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Jun 25, 2009 2:57 PM in response to: minaeng
Re: How do FCoE and iSCSI Fit into Your Storage Strategy?

FCoE sounds great but the price $$$!

 

Also not sure the tools are ready to manage FCoE just yet so will give it 12 months and then review.

 

Bren

radek.kubka Virtuoso
radek.kubka
387 posts since
Jul 31, 2008
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Jun 26, 2009 3:51 PM in response to: minaeng
Re: How do FCoE and iSCSI Fit into Your Storage Strategy?

FCoE sounds like a very neat idea. The problem is it is really bleeding edge at the moment.

 

Although FCoE standard on its own has been ratified, the trick is it cannot run on top of just any Ethernet infrastructure. And this is the second part of standarisation equation: Enhanced Ethernet (or Data Center Ethernet) quite likely will not be fully ratified within next year (with key features like true QoS & pause propagation).

 

So for the time being, in real-life implementations iSCSI has an obvious edge (although technically & conceptually inferior to FCoE).

 

Regards,
Radek

Andrew Miller Featured Member Guru
Andrew Miller
662 posts since
Oct 7, 2008
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Jun 30, 2009 2:47 PM in response to: radek.kubka
Re: How do FCoE and iSCSI Fit into Your Storage Strategy?

Just to add in another perspective to this perspective.....

 

http://blog.scottlowe.org/2009/06/30/thinking-out-loud-why-deploy-fcoe/

 

The multihop thing was new to me (and very good to know).

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