Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)

Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) burst upon the data center storage scene in April of 2007 with a joint press release issued by ten of the leading companies in the storage industry. Since that initial press release, FCoE has generated an extraordinary amount of discussion and controversy within the industry. The purpose of this book is to examine the FCoE technology and provide an understanding of the reasons behind its development and ultimate applications.

Just as Fibre Channel rode the way of Storage Area Networking and brought an entirely new paradigm to storage attachment, FCoE is riding the wave of the converged data center Ethernet. The realization of a converged data center network will fundamentally change the storage landscape and open the storage market to new ideas, architectures and products.

Because FCoE is based on both Fibre Channel and Ethernet, an understanding of both of these technologies is required to fully understand FCoE. It is not the intent of this book to cover those technologies in depth. The companion books in the Fibre Channel Consultant series already provide a thorough discussion of the Fibre Channel technologies and protocols. Similarly, there are many excellent books that already cover Ethernet. This book targets the marriage of those two technologies and explains how FCoE leverages the advantages of both technologies as the storage component of a converged data center Ethernet.

Using more than 160 figures and 25 tables to illustrate the essential concepts and operation of FCoE, this book proceeds step-by-step from basic concepts through detailed examination of all FCoE protocols. Unlike other texts, including the standards themselves, Fibre Channel over Ethernet expands on key factors such as configurations, deployment scenarios and the benefits of FCoE. It's the ultimate resource for anyone involved in this dynamic technology.