For a long time, the architecture and best practices of storage networks have been relatively well-understood. Recently, however, advanced capabilities have been added to storage that could have broader impacts on networks than we think.
The three main storage network transports – Fibre Channel, Ethernet, and InfiniBand – all have mechanisms to handle increased traffic, but they are not all affected or implemented the same way. For instance, utilizing a protocol such as NVMe over Fabrics will offer very different methodologies for handling congestion avoidance, burst handling, and queue management when looking at one networking in comparison to another.
Unfortunately, many network administrators may not understand how different storage solutions place burdens upon their networks. As more storage traffic traverses the network, customers face the risk of congestion leading to higher-than-expected latencies and lower-than expected throughput.
That’s why the SNIA Networking Storage Forum (NSF) is hosting a live webcast on June 18, 2019, Introduction to Incast, Head of Line Blocking, and Congestion Management where our NSF experts will cover:
- Typical storage traffic patterns
- What is Incast, what is head of line blocking, what is congestion, what is a slow drain, and when do these become problems on a network?
- How Ethernet, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand handle these effects
- The proper role of buffers in handling storage network traffic
- Potential new ways to handle increasing storage traffic loads on the network
Register today to save your spot for June 18th. As always, our experts will be available to answer your questions. We hope to see you there.