Overview

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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Silvano Gai ,  Claudio DeSanti
Publisher:   Pearson Education (US)
Imprint:   Cisco Press
Dimensions:   Width: 18.80cm , Height: 0.90cm , Length: 23.10cm
Weight:   0.294kg
ISBN:  

9781587058882

ISBN 10:   158705888
Pages:   168
Publication Date:   17 September 2009
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Out of Print
Availability:   In Print  
Limited stock is available. It will be ordered for you and shipped pending supplier's limited stock.

Table of Contents

I/O Consolidation 1     Introduction 1     What Is I/O Consolidation 2     Merging the Requirements 3     Why I/O Consolidation Has Not Yet Been Successful 4     Fundamental Technologies 5     PCI-Express 5     10 Gigabit Ethernet 5     Additional Requirements 8     Buffering Requirements 8     Layer 2 Only 9     Switch Architecture 9     Low Latency 10     Native Support for Storage Traffi c 11     RDMA Support 11 Enabling Technologies 15     Introduction 15     Lossless Ethernet 15     PAUSE 15     Credits Versus PAUSE 17     PAUSE Propagation 18     Is Lossless Better? 19     Why PAUSE Is Not Widely Deployed 20     Priority-based Flow Control (PFC) 20     Additional Components 22     DCBX: Data Center Bridging eXchange 22     Bandwidth Management 23     Congestion Management 25     Delayed Drop 26     Going Beyond Spanning Tree 28     Active-Active Connectivity 32     Etherchannel 32     Virtual Switching System (VSS) 32     virtual Port Channel (vPC) 34     Ethernet Host Virtualizer 36     Layer 2 Multipath (L2MP) 38     Basic Mechanisms in L2MP 40     Cisco DBridges 47     IETF RBridges and the TRILL Project 51     VEB: Virtual Ethernet Bridging 52     Server Virtualization 53     SR-IOV 54     The IEEE Standard Effort 54     VEB in the Adapter 55     VEB in the Switch 56     VNTag 57     Fabric Extenders 59     VN-Link 60     Questions and Answers 63     Does FCoE Uses Credits? 63     High Availability of PAUSE and Credits 63     Queue Size 63     Long-Haul 63     FECN/BECN 64     Confi guration 64     Bandwidth Prioritization 64     Storage Bandwidth 64     Cisco DCB/FCoE Support 65     10GE NICs 65     IP Routing 65     Lossless Ethernet Versus Infi niband 66     Nomenclature 66 Fibre Channel over Ethernet 67     Introduction 67     Fibre Channel 69     Fibre Channel Architectural Models 71     FCoE Mapping 73     FCoE Architectural Models 74     FCoE Benefi ts 79     FCoE Data Plane 80     FCoE Topologies 82     FCoE Addressing 85     FCoE Forwarding 87     FPMAs and SPMAs 90     FIP: FCoE Initialization Protocol 92     FIP Messages 93     FIP VLAN Discovery 97     FIP Discovery 98     FIP Virtual Link Instantiation 103     FIP Virtual Link Maintenance 108     Converged Network Adapters 110     FCoE Open Software 112     Network Tools 113     FCoE and Virtualization 114     Fibre Channel Block I/O 115     iSCSI Block I/O 116     Moving a VM 117     FCoE and Block I/O 117     FCoE FAQ 118     Is FCoE Routable? 118     iSCSI Versus FCoE? 120     Does FCoE Require Gateways? 123 Case Studies 125     Introduction 125     I/O Consolidation with Discrete Servers 126     Top-of-Rack Consolidated I/O 129     Example with Blade Servers 131     Updating the Distribution Layer 133     Unifi ed Computing System 136 Bibliography 139     PCI Express 139     IEEE 802.3 139     IEEE 802.1 139     Ethernet Improvements 139     Fibre Channel 139     FCoE 140     TRILL 140     Virtualization 140 Glossary 141 Figures 145 Tables 149 Index 151  

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Author Information

Silvano Gai, who grew up in a small village near Asti, Italy, has more than 27 years of experience in computer engineering and computer networks. He is the author of several books and technical publications on computer networking and multiple Internet Drafts and RFCs. He is responsible for 30 issued patents and 50 patent applications. His background includes 7 years as a full professor of computer engineering, tenure track, at Politecnico di Torino, Italy, and seven years as a researcher at the CNR (Italian National Council for Scientifi c Research). For the past 12 years, he has been in Silicon Valley where, in the position of Cisco Fellow, he was an architect of the Cisco Catalyst family of network switches, of the Cisco MDS family of storage networking switches, and of the Nexus family of data center switches. Silvano teaches a course on I/O Consolidation, Data Center Ethernet, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet at Stanford University (see http://scpd.stanford.edu/certifi cates/fcoe).     Claudio DeSanti is a Distinguished Engineer in the Advanced Architectures & Research organization at Cisco. He represents Cisco in several National and International Standards Bodies, such as INCITS Technical Committee T11, IEEE 802.1, IETF, and in industry associations. He is vice chairman of the INCITS T11 Technical Committee, chairperson of various working groups, including FC-BB-5, where FCoE has been developed, and technical editor of different standards, including IEEE 802.1Qbb, where Priority-based Flow Control is defi ned. He is author of several patents and international publications, including ten RFCs in IETF and other standards in the American National Standard Institute. He received many honors and awards, including the INCITS 2008 Technical Excellence Award, the INCITS 2007 Team Award, and the INCITS 2006 Gene Milligan Award for Effective Committee Management. Claudio’s research interests include network protocols, storage networking, routing, and security. He holds a Ph.D. in computer engineering from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, Italy.

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