I/O consolidation in the data center : a complete guide to data center ethernet and fibre channel over ethernet

Using Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and related technologies, data centers can consolidate data traffic onto a single network switch, simplifying their environments, promoting virtualization, and substantially reducing power and cooling costs. This emerging technology is drawing immense excitement, but few enterprise IT decision-makers and implementers truly understand it. I/O Consolidation in the Data Center is the only complete, up-to-date guide to FCoE. FCoE innovators Silvano Gai and Claudio DeSanti (chair of the T11 FCoE standards working group) systematically explain the technology: its benefits, tradeoffs, and what it will take to implement it successfully in production environments. Unlike most other discussions of FCoE, this book fully reflects the final, recently-approved industry standard. The authors also present five detailed case studies illustrating typical FCoE adoption scenarios, as well as an extensive Q and A section addressing the issues enterprise IT professionals raise most often. This is a fully updated version of Silvano Gai's privately-published book on FCoE, written for leading FCoE pioneer Nuova Systems before the company was acquired by Cisco. Nearly 12,000 copies of that book have already been distributed, demonstrating the immense interest in FCoE technology, and the scarcity of reliable information that has existed about it. Cover Contents I/O Consolidation Introduction What Is I/O Consolidation Merging the Requirements Why I/O Consolidation Has Not Yet Been Successful Fundamental Technologies PCI-Express 10 Gigabit Ethernet Additional Requirements Buffering Requirements Layer 2 Only Switch Architecture Low Latency Native Support for Storage Traffic RDMA Support Enabling Technologies Introduction Lossless Ethernet PAUSE Credits Versus PAUSE PAUSE Propagation Is Lossless Better? Why PAUSE Is Not Widely Deployed Priority-based Flow Control (PFC) Additional Components DCBX: Data Center Bridging eXchange Bandwidth Management Congestion Management Delayed Drop Going Beyond Spanning Tree Active-Active Connectivity Etherchannel Virtual Switching System (VSS) virtual Port Channel (vPC) Ethernet Host Virtualizer Layer 2 Multipath (L2MP) Basic Mechanisms in L2MP Cisco DBridges IETF RBridges and the TRILL Project VEB: Virtual Ethernet Bridging Server Virtualization SR-IOV The IEEE Standard Effort VEB in the Adapter VEB in the Switch VNTag Fabric Extenders VN-Link Questions and Answers Does FCoE Uses Credits? High Availability of PAUSE and Credits Queue Size Long-Haul FECN/BECN Configuration Bandwidth Prioritization Storage Bandwidth Cisco DCB/FCoE Support 10GE NICs IP Routing Lossless Ethernet Versus Infiniband Nomenclature Fibre Channel over Ethernet Introduction Fibre Channel Fibre Channel Architectural Models FCoE Mapping FCoE Architectural Models FCoE Benefits FCoE Data Plane FCoE Topologies FCoE Addressing FCoE Forwarding FPMAs and SPMAs FIP: FCoE Initialization Protocol FIP Messages FIP VLAN Discovery FIP Discovery FIP Virtual Link Instantiation FIP Virtual Link Maintenance Converged Network Adapters FCoE Open Software Network Tools FCoE and Virtualization Fibre Channel Block I/O iSCSI Block I/O Moving a VM FCoE and Block I/O FCoE FAQ Is FCoE Routable? iSCSI Versus FCoE? Does FCoE Require Gateways? Case Studies Introduction I/O Consolidation with Discrete Servers Top-of-Rack Consolidated I/O Example with Blade Servers Updating the Distribution Layer Unified Computing System Bibliography PCI Express IEEE 802.3 IEEE 802.1 Ethernet Improvements Fibre Channel FCoE TRILL Virtualization Glossary A B C D E F H I L M N O P Q R S T V W Z Figures Tables Index A B C D E F H I L M N O P Q R S T U V W Z