News

posted on 11 April 2008 04:07

FCoE is about as stupid as a technology can be, says Mac Farley, a Dell/EqualLogic lead blogger.

Farley was a storage area network (SAN) industry analyst who joined EqualLogic in October 2006 as director of customer programs. With Dell now owning EqualLogic he has become Dell's Inside IT Lead Blogger.

FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) is a way of sending Fibre Channel (FC) frames across an Ethernet LAN and so enabling non-FC servers to use FC SAN storage resources. They could also use iSCSI of course, since the SAN fabric must have an Ethernet port for either iSCSI or FCoE traffic to enter, like an Ethernet on-ramp to the FC highway.

This week Cisco, Emulex and QLogic announced FCoE support and capabilities at SNW in Orlando, Florida. Brocade and Intel are also working together to develop FCoE gear. Farley is implying that these five companies' views and strategies on FCoE are misconceived.

Farley says that an advantage, a supposed advantage of FCoE, is the maintenance of the FC management model but doesn't think that very important. FCoE will, he says, mix data and storage traffic on the same LAN and, when both are mission-critical, problems with one will cause problems with the other. Better to separate the traffic.

He also thinks early FCoE implementations will need costly professional services to get right. CIOs should watch it but avoid it until the kinks are worked out and it has proved itself.

Is this what Dell thinks? Bloggers, corporate bloggers can be like jesters in a medieval court, licensed to say things the king cannot, and doesn't necessarily believe. To repeat Farley's own sentiment, CIOs should watch and wait.

^{[Chris Mellor.]}