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manual abstract
Introduction
Using separate, single-purpose networks for data, management, and storage can be more complex and
costly than required for IT organizations or infrastructure deployments. Network convergence is a more
economical solution: It simplifies data center infrastructure by consolidating block-based storage and
traditional IP-based data communications networks onto a single converged Ethernet network.
Network convergence promises to reduce the cost of qualifying, buying, powering, cooling, provisioning,
maintaining, and managing network-related equipment. The challenge is determining the best adoption
strategy for your business.
This technology brief discusses these aspects of converged infrastructure:
• Current data center topology
• Limitations of previous attempts to create converged networks
• Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) technology
• How converged network topologies and converged network adapters (CNAs) work together to tie
multiple networks into a single, converged infrastructure
Traditional data center topology
Traditional data center designs include separate, heterogeneous network devices for different types of data.
Many data centers support three or more types of networks that serve these purposes:
• Block storage data management
• Remote management
• Business-centric data communications
Each network and device adds to the complexity, cost, and management overhead. Converged networks
can simplify typical topologies by reducing the number of physical components. This convergence leads to
simplified management and improvements in quality of service (QoS).
Early attempts at converged networks
There have been many attempts to create converged networks over the past decade. Fibre Channel Protocol
(FCP) is a lightweight mapping of SCSI to the Fibre Channel (FC) layers 1 and 2 transport protocol
(Figure1, yellow shaded oval). Fibre Channel carries not only FCP traffic, but also IP traffic, to create a
converged network. The cost of FC and the acceptance of Ethernet as the standard for LAN communications
prevented widespread FC use except for data center SANs for enterprise businesses.
InfiniBand (IB) technology provides a converged network capability by transporting inter-processor
communication, LAN, and storage protocols. The two most common storage protocols for IB are SCSI
Remote Direct Memory Access Protocol (SRP) and iSCSI Extensions for RDMA (iSER). These protocols use
the RDMA capabilities of IB. SRP builds a direct SCSI to RDMA mapping layer and protocol, and iSER
copies data directly to the SCSI I/O buffers without intermediate data copies (Figure 1, green shaded oval).
These protocols are lightweight but not as streamlined as FC. Widespread deployment was impractical
because of the perceived high cost of IB and the complex gateway and routers needed to translate from
these IB-centric protocols and networks to native FC storage devices. High Performance Computing
environments that have adopted IB as the standard transport network use SRP and iSER protocols.
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