DCB and FCoE

Since its inception, Brocade has been a driving force behind open industry standards for data center networking technologies. Today, Brocade continues to lead the creation of open standards for converged data center technologies:

• Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)
• Data Center Bridging (DCB)
• Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL)

Brocade also leads the industry in high-performance solutions that streamline server I/O consolidation and enable converged data centers. Today, the unified, end-to-end Brocade DCB/FCoE solution integrates seamlessly into existing data center environments and includes:

• Brocade Converged Network Adapters (CNAs)
• Top-of-rack FCoE switches
• End-of-row FCoE blades for backbone platforms
• Data center management applications

Industry Standards Activities
Due to the nature of FCoE as a convergence technology, several industry standards bodies are working on the necessary standards components. The INCITS T11 technical committee has developed the FCoE and FIP protocols. The IEEE 802.1 work group is working on the Data Center Bridging (DCB) features aimed at enhancing Ethernet so it becomes a deterministic and lossless transport that can carry Fibre Channel storage traffic. In addition, IETF is working on the TRILL protocol that will deliver Link Layer (Layer 2) multipathing and multihop routing.

FCoE
FCoE is an encapsulation protocol that prepares Fibre Channel frames (without altering them) for transport over DCB or lossless Ethernet links. Along with FCoE, the T11 technical work group has also developed the FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP) and forwarded both drafts to INCITS. Both protocols have been accepted by INCITS and will soon be published as industry standards.

DCB
With its work on DCB, the IEEE 802.1 work group is focused on the enhancements that will turn Ethernet into a lossless transport. This will enable Fibre Channel storage traffic and LAN data traffic to share common DCB links, thereby enabling converged data center networks. DCB-related standards features are expected to be completed before the end of 2010, but some existing products already support the full set of proposed features.