Most data center infrastructure uses an Ethernet-based LAN infrastructure to connect servers to each other and a separate Fibre Channel network to connect servers and storage. These two different technologies fulfill different technical requirements in the data center. Fibre Channel is used for the quick migration of data between servers and storage hardware, while Ethernet is the most widespread LAN technology for connecting end systems to the network, along with the fiber optic versions for site backbones in carrier networks, data centers and corporate environments.
The major benefits of Fibre Channel is speed and performance over traditional Ethernet networks, as well as packet delivery rates approaching 100 percent. Some packet loss is acceptable on traditional Ethernet networks, but not acceptable within a storage network. Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) will increase the performance of existing Ethernet and to tunnel Fibre Channel traffic through the Ethernet infrastructure.
FCoE can provide a huge potential benefit to simplifying overall network connectivity. Fibre Channel technology can also be leveraged for more virtualization in the data center. Eventually it is predicted, every Fibre Channel infrastructure will be replaced by FCoE, and that traditional Ethernet infrastructure will be replaced by converged networks.
