“10 GbE is the nail in the coffin for fibre channel”

Storage networking is heading for change with fibre channel - the reigning king of gigabit-speed storage networking - going the way of the dodo bird. Why? Because 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) is a far more compelling storage networking technology. High-speed storage networking allows organizations to better manage and quickly transfer large amounts of data. Fibre channel is good for this, but it lives in its own world: no access to the LAN, and with its own protocols. By contrast, 10 GbE will work with multiple protocols and provides access to the LAN. However, virtualization, which is a seemingly unstoppable technology for better resource allocation, can negatively affect storage networking in 10 GbE environments. The reason, according to proponents of GbE, is heavyweight applications get caught in the bottleneck at the input/output (I/O) level. Cupertino CA-based Neterion Inc., which has almost 50 employees in Ottawa focused on R&D, is tackling this major headache. "The main problem with virtualization is the impact on I/O throughput," Lee Shepherd, Neterion's CTO, tells Network Letter. "We are right in the centre of 10 GbE and virtualization. Neterion's adaptors are fundamental enablers, because everyone is concerned about the impact of I/O intensive applications at the hypervisor and bare metal. Without enhancements at the I/O level, heavyweight applications cannot be virtualized today." And fibre channel, the de facto standard for gigabit-speed storage networking, is not the answer. In order to promote 10 GbE and co-ordinate multi-vendor offerings, Nimbus Data Systems Inc., a storage infrastructure vendor with headquarters in San Francisco CA, has put together an alliance of companies offering GbE storage solutions. Among them are Neterion, Force10 Networks, Fujitsu, Fulcrum Microsystems, NetXen, Arastra, and Mellanox Technologies. "The goal for the alliance is to encompass the space," says Thomas Isakovich, Nimbus's president. "So, we want companies that provide switches, adaptors, silicon, as well as systems integrators. This is the initial group, mostly smaller, forward-thinking companies. I expect the list to quadruple in the next three months." William Terrill, a US-based associate senior analyst at London ON-headquartered Info-Tech Research Group, says fibre channel supporters have been spreading a lot of "FUD": fear, uncertainty, and doubt. "10 GbE scares them," he says. "For the data centre 1 Gig is all you need for the vast majority of storage networks, and you can aggregate ports with Ethernet, which you can't do with fibre channel. When you put 4 Gig fibre channel against 1 Gig Ethernet, most people don't care because they can virtualize. As well, 10 GbE works with different storage devices, different vendors, and - despite what the fibre channel people say - performance is not an issue. To drive home the point, Terrill refers to fibre channel as "tomorrow's Token-Ring," referring to IBM'S LAN networking technology that, despite fierce efforts by IBM to keep it alive in the early 1990s, succumbed to Ethernet switching. The overall appeal of 10 GbE is quite compelling. Compared to 4 Gb fibre channel it can reduce storage network infrastructure costs by 30%-75%, simplify administration through uniform management across the LAN, WAN, and storage network, and increase bandwidth while minimizing latency. But perhaps the biggest advantage is that it benefits from multi-vendor interoperability of 10 GbE switches, adapters, and storage devices, supports present protocols like iSCSI (as well as emerging protocols) and is easy to resource from existing labour pools. Terrill sees virtualization as another big influencer for the shift to 10 GbE, adding weight to Neterion's push to solve the I/O bottleneck. "The drivers are there for VMware, Hyper-V, Xen. They can use 10 GbE output effectively using multiple different instances of a virtual server at once," he says. From Nimbus's perspective, it's short-sighted for people to worry about the erosion of existing fibre channel business, because the overall storage area network (SAN) market will grow, and fibre channel is a difficult connect for anything but the largest enterprises. "10 GbE allows vendors to capture the LAN business in a bigger way," says Isakovich. "All the fibre channel vendors can do is sell for the SAN, but if they can also be the same company that provides the LAN equipment, then they could win big." Despite what may appear to be compelling reasons to push forward with full force on 10 GbE, it's still an unknown technology to many, and a lot of awareness has to be built. "The Nimbus alliance makes sure that the customer understands that the community is working together," says Ravi Chalaka, VP of marketing for Neterion. "The alliance creates a picture of total solutions. After all, 10 GbE is still in the early stages, and people want to know that they have all the pieces: storage, management, adaptor, etc." There will be significant push-back from the fibre channel community - the installed base is too big for it to go quietly. But expectations are that the 10 GbE market will grow to be dramatically bigger than fibre, with one of the drivers being next year's anticipated shipping of 10 Gig on the motherboard. "At that point," says Isakovich "there'll be no reason to be spending twice as much for half the speed." And, although there will always be the argument that fibre channel doesn't drop packets, even that may become moot. "Ethernet doesn't have a system for overloaded switches," says Info-Tech's Terrill, "but the buffers for enterprise switches are so large, that in virtually all cases dropped packets don't exist." Terrill is confident enough to close with a dire prediction: "10 GbE is the nail in the coffin for fibre channel."

“10 GbE is the nail in the coffin for fibre channel”

News | 05/21/2008 5:22 pm EDT

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