FCoE in 2010 – update and events

Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is still a hot topic in 2010.  My expectation is that in 2010, FCoE will have strong growth (of course, growing by high percentages is easy when you start with small numbers) and that as more server options with FCoE become available that we will start to see FCoE expanding many FC environments. From a standards perspective, T11 FC-BB-6 is working to “add details” to the current FCoE environments; while the exact goals are not completed, they may include distributed FCF functionality (enabling multi-hop) and direct connectivity of end nodes (removing the requirement of a switch).  People should understand that even when we have multi-hop and end-to-end configurations, that it will take time to grow the scope of solutions.  In 2010, we are unlikely to see an all-Ethernet FCoE configuration running thousands of nodes in a single configuration.

As part of the extending the solution to you, there are some upcoming events where I will be speaking on FCoE.

FCoE: Fact vs Fiction hosted by Wikibon

The first event will be a conversation hosted by Wikibon.  I will be joining Nigel Poulton, Dave Graham,  and others to discuss the realities of the technology, share what we are hearing in the marketplace and answer your questions.

Please join us and participate in the conversation.

Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Time: 12:00pm – 1:00pm ET (9:00am – 10:00am PT)

See the Wikibon site for more details on the call.

Ethernet Summit

The Ethernet Summit is a 2-day event put on by the Ethernet Alliance, this year’s is February 24-25, 2010 at the Wyndham Hotel in San Jose, CA.

There will be a full day of FCoE where I will be presenting the origins and status of FCoE.  The keynote of the day is Silvano Gai, who literally wrote the book on FCoE.  Claudio DeSanti, Chairperson of the committee at T11 that defines FCoE, will be giving the technology overview and there will be a panel discussion including members from Emulex, HP, QLogic, NetApp and Cisco.

In addition to the FCoE coverage, I’ll be looking forward to getting the latest on the networking industry including plenty of information on 40/100 Gb Ethernet.

For more details on the conference including the full agenda and registration details, see http://www.ethernetsummit.com/.

EMC World 2010

If you see my posts from last year, EMC World has always been one of my favorite weeks of the year.  The conference is May 10-13th in Boston.  My presentation last year was the top attended for the entire conference, so the bar is set high for this year.  My presentation for this year is entitled Converged Data Center: FCoE, iSCSI and the future of storage networking.  It’s always a great sharing of information with so many people that I look forward to seeing.  For more details and for registration (there are some great gifts available if you register by February 28th), please click the graphic below.

Please post any questions that you have and let me know if you’ll be at any of the events listed.  If you are new to this site and interested in continuing the discussion on storage networking, please consider subscribing to this blog.

Stuart Miniman

https://blogstu.wordpress.com