HP InfiniBand FDR 2-port 545M Converged Networks and Fibre Channel over Ethern - Page 10

Figure 3: HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric direct-attach with FC based HP 3PAR Flat SAN technology Systems Evolution of storage It seems inevitable that the storage networking now accomplished with Fibre Channel will transition onto an Ethernetbased converged standard such as FCoE throughout most of the data center. In the past, several attempts at accelerating this transition assumed that a single and fairly rapid technology replacement would occur. But history proves that pervasive changes occur rarely and slowly. Perhaps it is useful to consider a spectrum of Ethernet connected storage alternatives. Ethernet connected NAS appliances serving files have been emerging for decades and have a respectable share of the storage market; likewise in very high-end supercomputers a large parallel file system (such as HP IBRIX) runs on some of the nodes, with applications accessing data as files over the network. To reduce cost and make latency/throughput predictable, applications such as Microsoft Exchange are evolving away from SAN storage and back to DAS. Perhaps you can think of these cases as an application-level protocol on the network, not as a block storage protocol. iSCSI has been very successful at providing block storage in smaller environments. The HP Left Hand Networks clustered iSCSI products are an example. FCoE is a very compelling edge connection for Fibre Channel storage networks, especially in blade servers with CNA LOMs. For at least a decade to come, customers who already have Fibre Channel can continue using the hybrid FCoE edge, Fibre Channel core design. iSCSI over DCB offers many of the advantages of the FCoE/Fibre Channel combination. Using open source Internet iStorage Name Service Server (iSNS) instead of the higher priced Fibre Channel switch software from the major vendors will potentially keep costs much lower and eliminate the need for translation in Fibre Channel Forwarders. The industry may find a way to build an iSCSI/FCoE hybrid with common services across the two, but it is too soon to know whether such a product will emerge and if so, whether customers will embrace it. Some organizations are late adopters and will simply stay with Fibre Channel for a long time. There is a lot to be said for not spending resources on a big change until it is truly needed. The IT industry and customer base can only support one technology as the primary storage connection in the data center. The availability of a wide range of products, well developed expertise within the given technologies, and the maturity of the technology all follow the volume generated in the marketplace. We can't be certain how the available choices will fare. In the meantime it is important not to push one-size-fits-all, but rather to find the best storage connectivity for each organization. 10