White Paper Abstract:
This paper describes that Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is simply Fibre Channel. The rules for designing and administering an FC network are not fundamentally changed by this latest T11 standard. FCoE requires a lossless Ethernet network and this function is easy to achieve at the edge of the network.
Combining the various data center I/O technologies over Ethernet as a unified fabric eliminates the cost associated with the maintenance of several parallel networks. The savings in term of equipment (switches, cabling, HBAs/NICs) also generates an economy of space, power, and cooling. The unified fabric model also maximizes the flexibility in the allocation of resources, a critical goal in the data center.
In addition, introducing FCoE does not require a complete overhaul of the data center. FCoE at the edge not only provides most of the benefits of unified fabric, but it also interacts without causing problems with the existing FC-attached devices.