EMC FCoE Ecosystem

Join Stuart Miniman, Technologist for Storage Networking and Virtualization in EMC's CTO Office, as he discusses the current state of the Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) ecosystem. Stuart also offers the real answers to the top questions that customers are asking.
For more information:
• Collection of FCoE materials from EMC: http://blogstu.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/current-state-fcoe/
• EMC Connectrix Family: http://www.emc.com/products/family/connectrix-family.htm
• EMC Network Storage Topology Guide: http://elabnavigator.emc.com

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• EMC
• FCoE
• Stuart_Miniman
• 10GbE
• 10Gb
• Ethernet
• VMware
• iSCSI
• Cisco
• Brocade
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• QLogic
• FC
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[stuartminiman]

@DrDR51 the solution ecosystem is definitely growing fast. At EMC World next month I'll be talking about the rack based solutions (most notably the Vblock from VCE) which are optimized for FCoE. Thanks!

[DrDR51]

@stuartminiman any updates in light of vce?

[stuartminiman]

@drscar - thanks for the comment. You are absolutely correct that an FCoE switch can plug into an FC switch and that FCoE is becoming a solution that allows for great flexibility. FC and FCoE are a joint solution and we believe that Ethernet has an important role in the future of storage networking solutions.

[drscar]

Re: more flexibility w/ FC vs. FCoE; not necessarily true. The FCoE switch *can* take direct FC, but on the 5020 (for instance) these ports are usually used to connect to FC switches, rather than direct connected to storage. For those who are looking to take an evolutionary approach to their data center, they are more likely to take their existing SANs and connect to FCoE rather than individual storage. Thus, putting 10Gb speed on their storage gives far greater flexibility than 4Gb FC.