HP InfiniBand FDR 2-port 545M Converged Networks and Fibre Channel over Ethern - Page 6

Table 1. Converged Network Candidates Network environments Directory, security, other, SAN services Flow control (one hop) FCoE on DCB Fibre Channel switch software Per priority pause (PFC) part of DCB Flow control (endto-end) How would a cluster connection be added here? QCN (part of DCB) RoCEE iSCSI iSNS (open source) TCP TCP iWARP (RDMA over TCP) Comments Best coexistence with and transition plan for Fibre Channel Success in smaller environments and not enterprise InfiniBand (minimal) per priority buffer credit Manual tuning of workload InfiniBand is the lowest latency, fastest cluster network today Success only in low latency and supercomputer environments including storage system internals iSCSI on DCB iSNS (open source) PFC iSER or QCN RoCEE Emerging limited vendor support Convergence strategies As two of the largest data center infrastructure providers, HP and Cisco have significant impact on the direction of current and future network convergence efforts. Given the nature of its core business, it's understandable that Cisco has a network centric approach. HP is more aligned with the overall business solution in which the software and applications are a central focus. The applications are the tenants of the network infrastructure and HP supports this viewpoint with a broad portfolio of business optimization software. Table 2 compares the contrasting HP and Cisco strategies driven by these different approaches to the data center. Table 2. This table shows the contrasting data center networking strategies between HP and Cisco. Category Cisco HP Fundamental strategy for data center infrastructure Control all data center communications including storage protocols Develop and provide innovative solutions using industry standard protocols and mechanisms L2 network design strategy Hierarchical model with fabric extensions / centralize control Flatter, less complicated L2 networks / removing the hierarchy where possible Leverage intelligent resilient framework (IRF) to facilitate flatter L2 networks Compute strategy Control all network end points, including server nodes, from upstream hierarchy similar to traditional network designs. Increase network end point capability allowing management to occur from multiple levels including software. Provide and support compute node connectivity of any type. Intelligence & management Push all management to switch devices up the hierarchy Allow management to occur at node level and promote management distribution Remove intelligence from network end points Develop intelligence at all levels - server, chassis, cabinet, network and storage Fabric connectivity Cisco provides solutions in the multi-layer SAN switch segment and strives to provide unique and sometimes proprietary options for an all Cisco infrastructure remain open and flexible wherever possible to maintain compatibility with existing dc architectures support any standards-based upstream network for Ethernet, Fibre Channel and InfiniBand 6