On the surface, Ethernet Fibre Channel (FCoE) is an absolutely good technology: less hardware, cabling, installation and management overhead, and lower start-up costs.
According to Bob Lalibert, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), "FCoE deployment costs 33% lower than traditional networks, considering the switches, cabling, and adapters. At the same time, FCoE can also save 50% in power and cooling costs."
He said that FCoE is generally a "rooftop" arrangement. This means that FCoE switches are at the top of the rack to replace Fibre Channel (FC) switches and Ethernet switches. This setup uses either a converged network adapter (CNA) or a general-purpose on-board LAN (LOM) that supports FCoE. As long as the application supports it, there will always be redundant connections -- that is, each server has at least two FCoE connections to rack FCoE switches (without two Fibre Channel and two Ethernet connections per server). The top-of-rack switch then sends the Ethernet transmission to the LAN and sends the Fibre Channel transmission to the SAN (Storage Area Network).
Laliberte said: "Our long-term predictions are that most of the connectivity solutions will be centered on Ethernet transmissions. If you look at the CNA market, you will see most of the things like this - FCoE, iSCSI (Internet Small Computer Systems) Interfaces, Ethernet, and even server-to-server connections are all on a single network card or chip."
Similar to a unified storage system that can accept any protocol, the associated server will have a unified connection adapter that handles almost any Ethernet-based protocol through an on-board chip or adapter card.
Despite such advantages, many users are still indifferent to FCoE. ESG believes that the user penetration rate at the end of 2010 is only 9%. What happened?
Demartek industry analyst Dennis Martin reminded us that the storage architecture has changed slowly. He stated that only very early adopters would be willing to use a top-of-rack switch to connect to an existing storage network. However, in the next phase, which is the current stage, core network support and the adoption of more FCoE adapters, as well as some FCoE storage targets, will help increase the adoption rate of FCoE. As manufacturers support more FCoE deployments, adoption of FCoE will improve. It recommends that companies consider FCoE as a strategic part of their IT projects.
Martin said: "FCoE should be included in long-term planning, considering the deployment of FCoE in new equipment procurement and data center construction."
ESG's user survey shows that FCoE is expected to exceed 25% penetration by the end of 2012. Analysts are generally optimistic about the future of FCoE.
Greg Schulz, an analyst at StorageIO Group, said: "In 2011, we laid the groundwork for more widespread adoption of FCoE in many areas. Vendors continue to develop their technologies and increase product maturity, adding functionality and interoperability from server adapters, and Add operating system and virtual machine management support and related management tools to network switches and routers."