A FCoE Community: Welcome to our community for developers, engineers and resellers interested in FCoE technology innovation.

It has been three years since FCoE was first introduced in the T11 standard.  And over these years, there has been growing interest in the Ethernet industry to adopt this new technology as the standard nears final ratification.

This month, there will be two plugfests to help bring the completion of this standard closer: the DCB Plugfest hosted by the Ethernet Alliance and the FCoE Plugfest hosted by the FCIA.  The two plugfests are a week apart – 5/17-21 for the DCB Plugfest and 5/24-28 for the FCoE Plugfest – and this is intentional.  FCoE is actually a combination of several technologies but can be thought of in terms of two primary components:

1. enhancements to Ethernet through DCB (Data Center Bridging) that allow Ethernet to carry Fibre Channel traffic by creating a lossless channel that meets the minimum specifications for Fibre Channel reliability and
2. bridging between Ethernet to the SAN/Fibre Channel.  At the two plugfests, manufacturers will be able to verify the performance and interoperability of FCoE from both sides of the channel.

Plugfests are critical to the successful implementation and adoption of FCoE.  The primary purpose of these plugfests is to ensure the interoperability of new FCoE equipment between different vendors.  These plugfests are also especially important for new players to the FCoE market as it allows them to ‘catch up’, so to speak, in terms of interoperating with all the other vendors.

However, plugfests are important beyond just demonstrating interoperability.  Specifically, they provide a visible milestone for the FCoE industry, giving positive proof of the progress that is being made to carry this standard from an abstract paper specification to being implemented in concrete products.  Together, they show the solidarity of the main players and their willingness to cooperate and, as a result, increase overall confidence in the ability of FCoE to serve the industry as promised.

The plugfests also enable manufacturers to see the potential and future of FCoE more clearly.  As each stage of the technology is proven to be real, the applications and possibilities it enables become more real as well.  One can already see the growing acceptance of and excitement for FCoE throughout the industry.

JDSU is taking a leading role in these plugfests and the general overall adoption of FCoE by designing the test plans for both plugfests.  Based on its extensive experience with Ethernet and Fibre Channel, the JDSU plugfest team has put together a comprehensive approach for not only verifying interoperability between FCoE products but also for helping manufacturers identify any problem issues so that they can comply faster.

JDSU’s approach to FCoE has been to recognize that both sides of the channel are based on different standards and so require different test metrics and troubleshooting techniques.  Because the Xgig Analyzer monitors and analyzes both Ethernet and Fibre Channel traffic on the same platform, this enables developers to correlate data as it crosses the Ethernet and Fibre Channel domains and allows end-to-end analysis and interoperability testing.

The DCB and FCoE Plugfests promise to be exciting as they bring us another step closer to the future of the SAN.  I’ll share more details of the plugfests in coming blogs.

DCB Plugfest: http://ethernetalliance.org/events/interoperability_test_events/data_center_bridging_plugfest

FCoE Plugfest: http://www.fibrechannel.org/component/content/article/159