Last week was cut short by attendance at EMC’s “Record Breaking” product launch. I covered the shenanigans and marketing antics already, and will dive deeper into the technical and product announcements later. Next week I’ll be at The Exec Event in Palo Alto, but have some posts ready to roll while I’m away!
FCoTR
Notes From Networking Field Day 2010
As some readers of my blog know, I organize the independent Gestalt IT cooperative. We’re a group of folks who investigate and discuss enterprise IT technology, writing articles, running online communities, and organizing live events. Field Day is our chance to come together in various locations for face-to-face meetings with interesting product and technology companies. We’re in San Jose this week for our first networking-focused Field Day event, and things are getting interesting!
The FCoTR Phenomenon Exposes the Weaknesses in Ethernet
The buzz about Fibre Channel over Token Ring has built rapidly over the last week. Industry experts like Greg Ferro, Denton Gentry, and Joe Onisick have weighed in, and the Packet Pushers Podcast featured the news in show 12, “Get on the Ring!” Some have called out FCoTR as a foolish hoax, but the FCoTR phenomenon is not foolish. Indeed, FCoTR gives everyone in the industry the chance to reevaluate the current state of the art and has exposed real weaknesses in the Ethernet-centric future of the data center.
Fibre Channel over Token Ring: In-Depth Analysis
Industry veterans fondly remember the LAN wars of the early 1990’s, when a diverse set of excellent data link protocols competed for dominance. Although the victory seemed to have gone to Ethernet, industry insiders are looking for a resurgence of better alternatives. One technology, Token Ring, is undeniably superior for transporting modern protocols, especially Fibre Channel for storage. Let’s take a look!
