FCoE - SNIA on Data, Networking & Storage

What Up with DCBX?

January 31, 2013March 1, 2014 Simon Gordon Leave a comment

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 protocol or not, but in reality that’s how it is actually used.

Now it is important to note that there are many misnomers around DCB itself. Let’s remember that DCB is actually a group within IEEE responsible for many separate standards – basically anything for Ethernet (or as IEEE say bridging) that is assumed to be specific to the data center. Currently, discussed are those standards and protocols related to I/O Convergence (PFC, ETS, QCN, DCBX) and those related to server virtualization (Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregator or VEPA and others). So in essence the intent of DCBX is to help two adjacent devices share information about how these protocols are, or need to be, configured. DCBX actually does this by leveraging good old LLDP – just as PFC, ETS and QCN leverage 802.1p. What is particularly nice though is that DCBX not only allows the simple exchange of information around the DCB protocols themselves but also around how upper level protocols might want to use the DCB layer.

This brings us nicely to a very critical point – like most things in this area, DCBX purely works at the link level to allow a pair of connected ports (node to switch or switch to switch) to exchange their specific port configuration. This is an important point as in a multi-hop environment you need to keep in mind that every link may successfully complete its DCBX negotiation but unless some higher level intelligence (you) ensures that things are set right on each and every link, you may still not be meeting the needs of an end-to-end traffic flow. Even in a simple case of device-switch-switch-device I could have Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) negotiated on the first device-switch and last switch-device connection, and nothing configured on the intermediate switch-switch connection – and the two FCoE end points would happily talk to each other thinking that they have end-to-end lossless connectivity. In a more complex scenario let’s also remember that many L2/L3 switches have not just the ability to route between L2 domains, but also have the ability to reclassify traffic from one 802/1p priority to another. For this reason it is often simpler to use DCB to support 8 independent forwarding planes across the data center as this means we can simply configure all ports pretty much identically. I believe the term here around being clever is â€˜here be dragons’.

Anyone that has spent a little time with DCB or FCoE will actually know that DCBX doesn’t just help at the level of the layer 2 protocols, but also helps at the level of the actual upper level protocol we care about. Most well known is that DCBX can carry specific exchanges to ensure the correct configuration of DCB to support FCoE and many people may be aware that it can do the same for iSCSI as well. Far less known however is that these two examples of setting up DCB for upper level protocols are in fact just that – examples. DCBX actually has a generic application type-length-value (TLV) format whereby you can specify what you would like for any upper level protocol that can be identified by either Ethertype or IP socket. Thus DCBX has like the rest of DCB been carefully architected to support the full broad needs of I/O and network convergence and not just the needs of storage convergence. DCBX as a protocol allows you to have an NFS Application TLV, an SMB Application TLV, a RDMA over Converged Ethernet or RoCE Application TLV, iWarp Application TLV, an SNMP Application TLV – etc.

A final and very practical point that any article on DCBX needs to cover is that we are in an evolving world and there are multiple different, and indeed incompatible, versions of DCBX available. Just reviewing the common DCB equipment available today you need to consider DCBX 1.0 as used by pre-standards FCoE products, DCBX 1.01 sometimes referred to as the Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) or baseline version as found most commonly on shipping products today, and DCBX IEEE as actually defined in the standards (physically mostly contained within the ETS standard). It is also important to note that while some products have mechanisms to auto discover and select which version of DCBX to use, there is in fact no standard for such mechanisms. In this case the term is I assume â€˜caviat emptor – buyer beware’.

All that said, maybe I should have started this blog reminding everyone that the I/O convergence parts of DCB are not just about allowing storage traffic to be mixed with non-storage traffic without fate sharing problems, but is actually about collapsing the multiple networks of different networks into a single network. I believe the average server is said to have about 6 NICs’ today? As such in the 10GbE and up Ethernet world, the full capabilities of DCBX really are a critical enabler for simplifying the operation of the modern converged virtualized data center.

Ethernet Storage Forum – 2012 Year in Review and What to Expect in 2013

December 20, 2012March 1, 2014 Jason Blosil Leave a comment

As we come to a close of the year 2012, I want to share some of our successes and briefly highlight some new changes for 2013. Calendar year 2012 has been eventful and the SNIA-ESF has been busy. Here are some of our accomplishments:

10GbE – With virtualization and network convergence, as well as the general availability of LOM and 10GBASE-T cabling, we saw this is a “breakout year” for 10GbE. In July, we published a comprehensive white paper titled “10GbE Comes of Age.” We then followed up with a Webcast “10GbE – Key Trends, Predictions and Drivers.” We ran this live once in the U.S. and once in the U.K. and combined, the Webcast has been viewed by over 400 people!
NFS – has also been a hot topic. In June we published a white paper “An Overview of NFSv4″ highlighting the many improved features NFSv4 has over NFSv3. A Webcast to help users upgrade, “NFSv4 – Plan for a Smooth Migration,” has also been well received with over 150 viewers to date. A 4-part Webcast series on NFS is now planned. We kicked the series off last month with “Reasons to Start Working with NFSv4 Now” and will continue on this topic during the early part of 2013. Our next NFS Webcast will be “Advances in NFS – NFSv4.1 and pNFS.” You can register for that here.
Flash – The availability of solid state devices based on NAND flash is changing the performance efficiencies of storage. Our September Webcast “Flash – Plan for the Disruption” discusses how Flash is driving the need for 10GbE and has already been viewed by more than 150 people.

We have also added to expand membership and welcome new membership from Tonian and LSI to the ESF. We expect with this new charter to see an increase in membership participation as we drive incremental value and establish ourselves as a leadership voice for Ethernet Storage.

As we move into 2013, we expect two hot trends to continue – the broader use of file protocols in datacenter applications, and the continued push toward datacenter consolidation with the use of Ethernet as a storage network. In order to better address these two trends, we have modified our charter for 2013. Our NFS SIG will be renamed the File Protocol SIG and will focus on promoting not only NFS, but also SMB / CIFS solutions and protocols. The iSCSI SIG will be renamed to the Storage over Ethernet SIG and will focus on promoting data center convergence topics with Ethernet networks, including the use of block and file protocols, such as NFS, SMB, FCoE, and iSCSI, over the same wire. This modified charter will allow us to have a richer conversation around storage trends relevant to your IT environment.

So, here is to a successful 2012, and excitement for the coming year.

Will Ethernet storage move to 10GBASE-T?

August 2, 2012March 1, 2014 David Fair Leave a comment

10GBASE-T is a technology that runs 10Gb Ethernet over familiar Category 6/6a cables for distances up to 100m and is terminated by the ubiquitous RJ-45 jack. Till now, most datacenter copper cabling has been special Direct Attach cables for distances up to 7m terminated by an SFP+ connector. To work, data center switches need matching SFP+ connectors, meaning new switches are required for any data center making the move from 1GbE to 10GbE. 10GBASE-T is generating a lot of interest in 2012 as the first single-chip implementations at lower power (fanless) and lower cost (competitive with Direct Attach NICs) come to market. A data center manager now has an evolutionary way to incorporate 10GbE that exploits the cabling and switches already in place. The cost savings from preserving existing cabling alone can be tremendous.

But is 10GBASE-T up to the task of carrying storage traffic? The bit-error rate technical tests of 10GBASE-T look promising. 10GBASE-T is meeting the 10-12 BER requirements of all the relevant Ethernet and storage specifications. We expect NAS and iSCSI to move rapidly to take advantage of the deployment cost savings offered by 10GBASE-T. Admins responsible for NAS and iSCSI storage over Ethernet should find 10GBASE-T meets their reliability expectations.

But what about Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)? Note that storage admins responsible for FC and/or FCoE are among the most risk-adverse people on the planet. They especially need to be confident that any new technology, no matter how compelling its benefits, doesn’t appreciably increase the risk of data loss. For this reason, they are adopting FCoE very slowly, though the economics make FCoE very compelling. So a broad market transition to FCoE over 10GBASE-T is likely to take some time regardless.

Cisco announced in June 2012 a new 5000-series Nexus switch supporting up to 68 ports of “FCoE-ready” 10GBASE-T. Cisco has made the investment to support storage protocols, including FCoE, over 10GBASE-T in this switch and is committed to working with the industry to do the testing to prove its robustness. In fact, some eager end-users are getting ahead of this testing, and, based on results from their own stress tests, moving now to storage over 10GBASE-T deployments, including FCoE.

Every major speed and capabilities transition for Ethernet has engendered skeptics. The transition to running storage protocols over 10GBASE-T is no different. General consensus is that the “jury is out” for FCoE over 10GBASE-T. The interoperability and stress testing to prove reliability isn’t complete. And storage admins will generally want to see reports from multiple deployments before they move. But the long-term prognosis for storage – NAS, iSCSI, and FCoE — over 10GBASE-T is looking very encouraging.

10GbE Answers to Your Questions

August 2, 2012March 1, 2014 Gary Gumanow Leave a comment

Our recent Webcast: 10GbE – Key Trends, Drivers and Predictions was very well received and well attended. We thank everyone who was able to make the live event. For those of you who couldn’t make it, it’s now available on demand. Check it out here.

There wasn’t enough time to respond to all of the questions during the Webcast, so we have consolidated answers to all of them in this blog post from the presentation team. Feel free to comment and provide your input.

Question: When implementing VDI (1000 to 5000 users) what are best practices for architecting the enterprise storage tier and avoid peak IOPS / Boot storm problems? How can SSD cache be used to minimize that issue?

Answer: In the case of boot storms for VDI, one of the challenges is dealing with the individual images that must be loaded and accessed by remote clients at the same time. SSDs can help when deployed either at the host or at the storage layer. And when deduplication is enabled in these instances, then a single image can be loaded in either local or storage SSD cache and therefore it can be served the client much more rapidly. Additional best practices can include using cloning technologies to reduce the space taken up by each virtual desktop.

Question: What are the considerations for 10GbE with LACP etherchannel?

Answer: Link Aggregation Control Protocol (IEEE 802.1AX-2008) is speed agnostic. No special consideration in required going to 10GbE.

Question: From a percentage point of view what is the current adoption rate of 10G Ethernet in data Centers vs. adoption of 10G FCoE?

Answer: As I mentioned on the webcast, we are at the early stages of adoption for FCoE. But you can read about multiple successful deployments in case studies on the web sites of Cisco, Intel, and NetApp, to name a few. The truth is no one knows how much FCoE is actually deployed today. For example, Intel sells FCoE as a “free” feature of our 10GbE CNAs. We really have no way of tracking who uses that feature. FC SAN administrators are an extraordinarily conservative lot, and I think we all expect this to be a long transition. But the economics of FCoE are compelling and will get even more compelling with 10GBASE-T. And, as several analysts have noted, as 40GbE becomes more broadly deployed, the performance benefits of FCoE also become quite compelling.

Question: What is the difference between DCBx Baseline 1.01 and IEEE DCBx 802.1 Qaz?

Answer: There are 3 versions of DCBX
– Pre-CEE (also called CIN)
– CEE
– 802.1Qaz

There are differences in TLVs and the ways that they are encoded in all 3 versions. Pre-CEE and CEE are quite similar in terms of the state machines. With Qaz, the state machines are quite different — the
notion of symmetric/asymmetric/informational parameters was introduced because of which the way parameters are passed changes.

Question: I’m surprise you would suggest that only 1GBe is OK for VDI?? Do you mean just small campus implementations? What about multi-location WAN for large enterprise if 1000 to 5000 desktop VMs?

Answer: The reference to 1GbE in the context of VDI was to point out that enterprise applications will also rely on 1GbE in order to reach the desktop. 1GbE has sufficient bandwidth to address VoIP, VDI, etc… as each desktop connects to the central datacenter with 1GbE. We don’t see a use case for 10GbE on any desktop or laptop for the foreseeable future.

Question: When making a strategic bet as a CIO/CTO in future (5-8 years plus) of my datacenter, storage network etc, is there any technical or biz case to keep FC and SAN? Versus, making move to 10/40GbE path with SSD and FC? This seems especially with move to Object Based storage and other things you talked about with Big Data and VM? Seems I need to keep FC/SAN only if vendor with structured data apps requires block storage?

Answer: An answer to this question really requires an understanding of the applications you run, the performance and QOS objectives, and what your future applications look like. 10GbE offers the bandwidth and feature set to address the majority of application requirements and is flexible enough to support both file and block protocols. If you have existing investment in FC and aren’t ready to eliminate it, you have options to transition to a 10GbE infrastructure with the use of FCoE. FCoE at its core is FCP, so you can connect your existing FC SAN into your new 10GbE infrastructure with CNAs and switches that support both FC and FCoE. This is one of the benefits of FCoE – it offers a great migration path from FC to Ethernet transports. And you don’t have to do it all at once. You can migrate your servers and edge switches and then migrate the rest of your infrastructure later.

Question: Can I effectively emulate or out-perform SAN on FC, by building VLAN network storage architecture based on 10/40GBe, NAS, and use SSD Cache strategically.

Answer: What we’ve seen, and you can see this yourself in the Yahoo case study posted on the Intel website, is that you can get to line rate with FCoE. So 10GbE outperforms 8Gbps FC by about 15% in bandwidth. FC is going to 16 Gbps, but Ethernet is going to 40Gbps. So you should be able to increasingly outperform FC with FCoE — with or without SSDs.

Question: If I have large legacy investment in FC and SAN, how do cost-effectively migrate to 10 or 40 GBe using NAS? Does it only have to be greenfield opportunity? Is there better way to build a business case for 10GBe/NAS and what mix should the target architecture look like for large virtualized SAN vs. NAS storage network on IP?

Answer: The combination of 10Gb converged network adapter (CNA) and a top of the rack (TOR) switch that supports both FCoE and native FC allows you to preserve connectivity to your existing FC SAN assets while taking advantage of putting in place a 10Gb access layer that can be used for storage and IP. By using CNAs and DCB Ethernet switches for your storage and IP access you are also helping to reduce your CAPEX and OPEX (less equipment to buy and manage using a common infrastructure. You get the added performance (throughput) benefit of 10G FCoE or iSCSI versus 4G or 8G Fibre Channel or 1GbE iSCSI. For your 40GbE core switches so you have t greater scalability to address future growth in your data center.

Question: If I want to build an Active-Active multi-Petabyte storage network over WAN with two datacenters 1000 miles apart to primarily support Big Data analytics, why would I want to (..or not) do this over 10/40GBe / NAS vs. FC on SAN? Does SAN vs. NAS really enter into the issue? If I got mostly file-based demand vs. block is there a tech or biz case to keep SAN ?

Answer: You’re right, SAN or NAS doesn’t really enter into the issue for the WAN part; bandwidth does for the amount of Big Data that will need to be moved, and will be the key component in building active/active datacenters. (Note that at that distance, latency will be significant and unavoidable; applications will experience significant delay if they’re at site A and their data is at site B.)

Inside the data center, the choice is driven by application protocols. If you’re primarily delivering file-based space, then a FC SAN is probably a luxury and the small amount of block-based demand can be delivered over iSCSI with equal performance. With a 40GbE backbone and 10GbE to application servers, there’s no downside to dropping your FC SAN.

Question: Are you familiar with VMware and CISCO plans to introduce a Beat for virtualized GPU Appliance (aka think Nivdia hardware GPUs) for heavy duty 3D visualization apps on VDI? No longer needing expensive 3D workstations like RISC based SGI desktops. If so, when dealing with these heavy duty apps what are your concerns for network and storage network?

Answer: I’m afraid I’m not familiar with these plans. But clearly moving graphics processing from the client to the server will add increasing load to the network. It’s hard to be specific without a defined system architecture and workload. However, I think the generic remarks Jason made about VDI and how NVM storage can help with peak loads like boot storms apply here as well, though you probably can’t use the trick of assuming multiple users will have a common image they’re trying to access.

Question: How do I get a copy of your slides from today? PDF?

Answer: A PDF of the Webcast slides is available at the SNIA-ESF Website at: http://www.snia.org/sites/default/files/SNIA_ESF_10GbE_Webcast_Final_Slides.pdf

10GbE – Are You Ready?

July 27, 2012March 1, 2014 Jason Blosil Leave a comment

Is 10GbE coming of age? Many of us within the SNIA-ESF think so. We have co-authored a new and objective white paper on the subject, “10GbE – Comes of Age.” You can download it at http://snia.org/sites/default/files/10GbElookto40GbE_Final.pdf

In this paper we dive deep into why we believe 2012 is the year for wide 10GbE adoption. There are numerous technical and economic justifications that will compel organizations to take advantage of the significant benefits 10GbE delivers. From virtualization and network convergence, to the general availability of LOM and 10GBASE-T there is no shortage of disruptive technologies converging to drive this protocol forward.

This paper is the foundation for much of our activity for the rest of the year. Our 10GbE live Webcast a couple of weeks ago was very well received. In fact hundreds of people either attended the live event or have viewed it on demand. I encourage you to check it out at http://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/663/50385. We also have two more Webcasts scheduled, one on NFS in August and the other on Flash technology in September. Keep checking this blog for details.

This paper is the result of a collaboration of industry leaders from Broadcom, Dell, Emulex, Intel, and NetApp. We pride ourselves on keeping things “vendor-neutral.” If you’re in IT, we hope you find this cooperation refreshing. If you’re a vendor, we welcome your participation and urge you to consider joining SNIA and the ESF. Get more info on joining SNIA at http://www.snia.org/member_com/join

Live Webcast: 10GbE – Key Trends, Drivers and Predictions

July 12, 2012March 1, 2014 Jason Blosil Leave a comment

The SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum (ESF) will be presenting a live Webcast on 10GbE on Thursday, July 19^th. Together with my SNIA colleagues, David Fair and Gary Gumanow, we’ll be discussing the technical and economic justifications that will likely make 2012 the “breakout year” for 10GbE. We’ll cover the disruptive technologies moving this protocol forward and highlight the real-world benefits early adopters are seeing. I hope you will join us!

The Webacast will begin at 8:00 a.m. PT/11:00 a.m. ET. Register Now: http://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/663/50385

This event is live, so please come armed with your questions. We’ll answer as many as we can on the spot and include the full Q&A here in a SNIA ESF blog post.

We look forward to seeing you on the 19^th!

Two Storage Trails on the 10GbE Convergence Path

August 8, 2011March 1, 2014 SteveAbbott Leave a comment

As the migration to 10Gb Ethernet moves forward, many data centers are looking to converge network and storage I/O to fully utilize a ten-fold increase in bandwidth. Industry discussions continue regarding the merits of 10GbE iSCSI and FCoE. Some of the key benefits of both protocols were presented in an iSCSI SIG webcast that included Maziar Tamadon and Jason Blosil on July 19th: Two Storage Trails on the 10Gb Convergence Path

It’s a win-win solution as both technologies offer significant performance improvements and cost savings. The discussion is sure to continue.

Since there wasn’t enough time to respond to all of the questions during the webcast, we have consolidated answers to all of them in this blog post from the presentation team. Feel free to comment and provide your input.

Question: How is multipathing changed or affected with FCoE?

One of the benefits of FCoE is that it uses Fibre Channel in the upper layers of the software stack where multipathing is implemented. As a result, multipathing is the same for Fibre Channel and FCoE.

Question: Are the use of CNAs with FCoE offload getting any traction? Are these economically viable?

The adoption of FCoE has been slower than expected, but is gaining momentum. Fibre Channel is typically used for mission-critical applications so data centers have been cautious about moving to new technologies. FCoE and network convergence provide significant cost savings, so FCoE is economically viable.

Question: If you run the software FCoE solution would this not prevent boot from SAN?

Boot from SAN is not currently supported when using FCoE with a software initiator and NIC. Today, boot from SAN is only supported using FCoE with a hardware converged networked adapter (CNA).

Question: How do you assign priority for FCoE vs. other network traffic. Doesn’t it still make sense to have a dedicated network for data intensive network use?

Data Center Bridging (DCB) standards that enable FCoE allow priority and bandwidth to be assigned to each priority queue or link. Each link may support one or more data traffic types. Support for this functionality is required between two end points in the fabric, such as between an initiator at the host with the first network connection at the top of rack switch, as an example. The DCBx Standard facilitates negotiation between devices to enable supported DCB capabilities at each end of the wire.

Question: Category 6A uses more power that twin-ax or OM3 cable infrastructures, which in large build-outs is significant.

Category 6A does use more power than twin-ax or OM3 cables. That is one of the trade-offs data centers should consider when evaluating 10GbE network options.

Question: Don’t most enterprise storage arrays support both iSCSI and FC/FCoE ports? That seems to make the “either/or” approach to measuring uptake moot.

Many storage arrays today support either the iSCSI or FC storage network protocol. Some arrays support both at the same time. Very few support FCoE. And some others support a mixture of file and block storage protocols, often called Unified Storage. But, concurrent support for FC/FCoE and iSCSI on the same array is not universal.

Regardless, storage administrators will typically favor a specific storage protocol based upon their acquired skill sets and application requirements. This is especially true with block storage protocols since the underlying hardware is unique (FC, Ethernet, or even Infiniband). With the introduction of data center bridging and FCoE, storage administrators can deploy a single physical infrastructure to support the variety of application requirements of their organization. Protocol attach rates will likely prove less interesting as more vendors begin to offer solutions supporting full network convergence.

Question: I am wondering what is the sample size of your poll results, how many people voted?

We had over 60 live viewers of the webcast and over 50% of them participated in the online questions. So, the sample size was about 30+ individuals.

Question: Tape? Isn’t tape dead?

Tape as a backup methodology is definitely on the downward slope of its life than it was 5 or 10 years ago, but it still has a pulse. Expectations are that disk based backup, DR, and archive solutions will be common practice in the near future. But, many companies still use tape for archival storage. Like most declining technologies, tape will likely have a long tail as companies continue to modify their IT infrastructure and business practices to take advantage of newer methods of data retention.

Question: Do you not think 10 Gbps will fall off after 2015 as the adoption of 40 Gbps to blade enclosures will start to take off in 2012?

10GbE was expected to ramp much faster than what we have witnessed. Early applications of 10GbE in storage were introduced as early as 2006. Yet, we are only now beginning to see more broad adoption of 10GbE. The use of LOM and 10GBaseT will accelerate the use of 10GbE.

Early server adoption of 40GbE will likely be with blades. However, recognize that rack servers still outsell blades by a pretty large margin. As a result, 10GbE will continue to grow in adoption through 2015 and perhaps 2016. 40GbE will become very useful to reduce port count, especially at bandwidth aggregation points, such as inter-switch links. 40Gb ports may also be used to save on port count with the use of fanout cables (4x10Gb). However, server performance must continue to increase in order to be able to drive 40Gb pipes.

Question: Will you be making these slides available for download?

These slides are available for download at www.snia.org/?

Question: What is your impression of how convergence will change data center expertise? That is, who manages the converged network? Your storage experts, your network experts, someone new?

Network Convergence will indeed bring multiple teams together across the IT organization: server team, network team, and storage team to name a few. There is no preset answer, and the outcome will be on a case by case basis, but ultimately IT organizations will need to figure out how a common, shared resource (the network/fabric) ought to be managed and where the new ownership boundaries would need to be drawn.

Question: Will there be or is there currently a NDMP equivalent for iSCSI or 10GbE?

There is no equivalent to NDMP for iSCSI. NDMP is a management protocol used to backup server data to network storage devices using NFS or CIFS. SNIA oversees the development of this protocol today.

Question: How does the presenter justify the statement of “no need for specialized” knowledge or tools? Given how iSCSI uses new protocols and concepts not found in traditional LAN, how could he say that?

While it’s true that iSCSI comes with its own concepts and subtleties, the point being made centered around how pervasive and widespread the underlying Ethernet know-how and expertise is.

Question: FC vs IP storage. What does IDC count if the array has both FC and IP storage which group does it go in. If a customer buys an array but does not use one of the two protocols will that show up in IDC numbers? This info conflicts SNIA’s numbers.

We can’t speak to the exact methods used to generate the analyst data. Each analyst firm has their own method for collecting and analyzing industry data. The reason for including the data was to discuss the overall industry trends.

Question: I noticed in the high-level overview that FCoE appeared not to be a ‘mesh’ network. How will this deal w/multipathing and/or failover?

The diagrams only showed a single path for FCoE to simplify the discussion on network convergence. In a real-world, best-practices deployment there would be multiple paths with failover. FCoE uses the same multipathing and failover capabilities that are available for Fibre Channel.

Question: Why are you including FCoE in IP-based storage?

The graph should indeed have read Ethernet storage rather than IP storage. This was fixed after the webinar and before the presentation got posted on SNIA’s website.

Ethernet and IP Storage – Today’s Technology Enabling Next Generation Data Centers

October 21, 2010March 1, 2014 Jason Blosil Leave a comment

I continue to believe that IP based storage protocols will be preferred for future data center deployments. The future of IT is pointing to cloud based architectures, whether internal or external. At the core of the cloud is virtualization. And I believe that Ethernet and IP storage protocols offer the greatest overall value to unlock the potential of virtualization and clouds. Will other storage network technologies work? Of course. But, I’m not talking about whether a network “works”. I’m suggesting that a converged network environment with Ethernet and IP storage offers the best combined value for virtual environments and cloud deployments. I’ve written and spoken about this topic before. And I will likely continue to do so. So, let me mention a few reasons to choose IP storage, iSCSI or NAS, for use in cloud environments.

Mobility. One of the many benefits of server virtualization is the ability to non-disruptively migrate applications from one physical server to another to support load balancing, failover or redundancy, and servicing or updating of hardware. The ability to migrate applications is best achieved with networked storage since the data doesn’t have to move when a virtual machine (VM) moves. But, the network needs to maintain connectivity to the fabric when a VM moves. Ethernet offers a network technology capable of migrating or reassigning network addresses, in this case IP addresses, from one physical device to another. When a VM moves to another physical server, the IP addresses move with it. IP based storage, such as iSCSI, leverages the built in capabilities of TCP/IP over Ethernet to migrate network port addresses without interruption to applications.

Flexibility. Most data centers require a mixture of applications that access either file or block data. With server virtualization, it is likely that you’ll require access to file and block data types on the same physical server for either the guest or parent OS. The ability to use a common network infrastructure for both the guest and parent can reduce cost and simplify management. Ethernet offers support for multiple storage protocols. In addition to iSCSI, Ethernet supports NFS and CIFS/SMB resulting in greater choice to optimize application performance within your budget. FCoE is also supported on an enhanced 10Gb Ethernet network to offer access to an existing FC infrastructure. The added flexibility to interface with existing SAN resources enhances the value of 10Gb as a long-term networking solution.

Performance. Cost. Ubiquity. Other factors that enhance Ethernet storage and therefore IP storage adoption include a robust roadmap, favorable economics, and near universal adoption. The Ethernet roadmap includes 40Gb and 100Gb speeds which will support storage traffic and will be capable of addressing any foreseeable application requirements. Ethernet today offers considerable economic value as port prices continue to drop. Although Gb speeds offer sufficient bandwidth for most business applications, the cost per Gb of bandwidth with 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) is now lower than GbE and therefore offers upside in cost and efficiency. Finally, nearly all new digital devices including mobile phones, cameras, laptops, servers, and even some home appliances, are being offered with WiFi connectivity over Ethernet. Consolidating onto a single network technology means that the networking infrastructure to the rest of the world is essentially already deployed. How good is that?

Some may view moving to a shared network as kind of scary. The concerns are real. But, Ethernet has been a shared networking platform for decades and continues to offer enhanced features, performance, and security to address its increased application. And just because it can share other traffic, doesn’t mean that it must. Physical isolation of Ethernet networks is just as feasible as any other networking technology. Some may choose this option. Regardless, selecting a single network technology, even if not shared across all applications, can reduce not only capital expense, but also operational expense. Your IT personnel can be trained on a single networking technology versus multiple specialized single purpose networks. You may even be able to reduce maintenance and inventory costs to boot.

Customers looking to architect their network and storage infrastructure for today and the future would do well to consider Ethernet and IP storage protocols. The advantages are pretty compelling.

Ethernet Storage Market Momentum Continues

September 24, 2010March 1, 2014 David Dale Leave a comment

The inexorable growth of the market for Ethernet storage continued in the first half of 2010 – in fact we’re getting very close to Ethernet storage being the majority of networked storage in the Enterprise.

According to IDC’s recent Q2 2010 Worldwide Storage Systems Hardware Tracker, Ethernet Storage (NAS plus iSCSI) revenue market share climbed to 45%, up from 39% in 2009, 32% in 2008 and 28% in 2007, as shown below.

	2007	2008	2009	Q2 2010
FC SAN	72%	68%	61%	55%
iSCSI SAN	6%	10%	13%	15%
NAS	22%	22%	26%	30%

In terms of capacity market share, we have already see the crossover point, with Ethernet Storage at 52% of the total PB shipped, up from 47% in 2009, 42% in 2008 and 37% in 2007, as shown in the following table.

	2007	2008	2009	Q2 2010
FC SAN	62%	58%	53%	48%
iSCSI SAN	8%	13%	15%	18%
NAS	29%	29%	32%	34%

Category: FCoE