What elements remain unresolved to make FCoE truly world-class? What should the vendors be prioritizing?
Multi-Hop FCoE Is Not Ready For Prime Time (Yet)
October 21, 2011 By 10 Comments
I know that a number of FCoE-related standards are settled, and I know that there are products in the market and even some limited multi-vendor compatibility. I even accept that some customers are deploying real “Full Monty FCoE” in production. But I just can’t recommend that technology yet: It’s not prudent, widespread, and low-risk, so I say it’s not ready for prime time.
Why I Am Biased Against FCoE
October 21, 2011 By 14 Comments
I am biased against FCoE because it’s too new to be blithely and broadly recommended for production enterprise use. That’s all. Yes, the standards are standardized and there are products extant. But that’s not enough for me.
Storage Changes in VMware vSphere 5
July 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Once again, VMware added a ton of new storage enhancements to vSphere. With storage rapidly becoming the limiting factor in scalability and performance of virtual machine environments, this is no surprise. Also not surprising is the fact that major features like Policy-Driven Storage and Storage DRS (along with SIOC) are exclusive to “Enterprise Plus” licenses.
FCoE vs. iSCSI – Making the Choice
May 20, 2011 By 15 Comments
iSCSI is an excellent choice in situations where Fibre Channel investment is nonexistent or badly in need of wholesale upgrade. FCoE, on the other hand, is likely to take over in high-end enterprise shops. It is relentlessly promoted by major vendors, and it seems that they will force the upgrade eventually.
Changes in Technology Drive Changes in IT Organizations and Roles
April 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Lots of my IT infrastructure management clients are talking about how the advent of Ethernet/IP and virtualization is changing the roles of storage, server, and network administrators. The evolution of the storage role in particular in enterprise IT organizations has been a topic of particular interest to me for a while: I definitely remember thinking about [...]
Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, January 28, 2011
January 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment
VMware ESX FCoE CNA Compatibility in Plain English
January 24, 2011 By 3 Comments
VMware has one awesome hardware compatibility list, but its thoroughness can be daunting. It’s fairly easy to search for a specific piece of hardware, but it’s difficult to tell what’s supported in a general sense. I’ve boiled down certain key hardware categories into a general plain-english list of what’s in and out of the ESX HCL. Let’s kick things off with FCoE CNAs.
The Three Requirements To Overcome Inertia
January 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In Philosophiæ Naturalis, Sir Isaac Newton defined inertia. Although he was referring to physical objects, the power of inertia affects companies, markets, and relationships in the same manner. Humans are creatures of habit, and change is challenging. When faced with a choice of continuing along the same road or branching off in a new direction, most will choose familiarity.
