We’re in the midst of a collision between data center networking and enterprise storage. Convergence is the clarion call from the halls of storage giants like EMC, Brocade, NetApp, QLogic and Emulex, as well as from networking powerhouses like Cisco, Intel and Broadcom. Although everyone seems sure that the future will converge on Ethernet, it is not clear how we will get there. Gigabit Ethernet is too slow for converged I/O, and 10Gbit hardware and cabling remains prohibitively expensive. Proponents of “everything over Ethernet” are stymied when they try to make a cost-based use case.
Network Computing