Fibre Channel will not die out as predicted

Dave Bailey, Computing, Friday 2 July 2010 at 16:00:00

Fibre Channel over Ethernet sales to overtake Fibre Channel, says Infonetics

Fibre Channel (FC) technology, predicted to die out a couple of years ago,
will continue to grow past 2014 for carrier and datacentre networks, says
Infonetics Research analyst Michael Howard.

Many enterprise and carrier datacentres have large amounts of FC installed at
significant cost. FC is currently the main network technology for connecting
servers to storage area networks (SANs) and other enterprise storage.

"Most of the big datacentres today are using FC, whether they're carriers or
content delivery networks. I don't know any big datacentres that don't use FC,"
said Howard.

"In Q1 2010, sales of FC and of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) SAN
switches were 24 per cent up on this quarter last year, unseasonably so, thanks
mainly to
Cisco,"
said Howard, adding that
Brocade
still had the largest share of the SAN switch market.

"With unprecedented amounts of data and video being created, firms will
continue to invest in these switches, driving strong annual growth through to
2014, when the market will be a $6.5bn (�4.3bn) one," he said.

The technology originally expected to replace FC was 10 gigabit Ethernet, but
another technology has since emerged - Fibre-Channel-over-Ethernet (FCoE) switch
technology.

FCoE allows FC networks to run over a single Ethernet-based network so that
firms don't have to replace FC. Although even this will involve both capital and
operational costs.

The other problem is who would take charge of the new system. Ethernet LANs
are controlled by network staff while SANs and servers are managed by IT staff.

"So who's going to be in charge of the new technology? Who's going to manage
it and who's going to control it?" said Howard.

FC networks can perform at two, four, and 8Gbit/s, with a 16Gbit/s standard
under consideration. Experts anticipate that the 16Gbit/s is due to be ratified
at the end of this year by the ANSI
T11 committee, with products likely in 2011.

"This means that people today can say, 'I'm not being forced to move to 10
gigabit Ethernet or FCoE today. I can delay that decision because 16Gbit/s FC is
coming along'," explained Howard.

The recent ratification of the
IEEE 802.3ba
standard for 40Gbit/s and 100Gbit/s Ethernet systems [June 2010] is also putting
pressure on firms thinking about migration from FC.

The next iteration of the FC standard will be 32Gbit/s, however "the
consensus view at HP, IBM and Brocade is that there won't be a 32Gbit/s FC
standard, and that everybody will be going to 40Gbit/s Ethernet," he said.

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2265866/fibre-channel-sales-growing