Ethernet marches on

The £1.5b (AUD $3b) acquisition of Ethernet switching vendor Foundry Networks by Fibre Channel (FC) specialist Brocade may have IT managers who have deployed FC storage area network (SAN) infrastructure wondering about their investments.

Is this a move to compete with Cisco or an acknowledgement that FC is destined to lose out to the onward march of Ethernet in the guise of iSCSI – or both?

A technology that could unite the worlds of FC and Ethernet is Fibre Channel over Ethernet, which would allow firms to operate FC SANs and utilise the higher speeds currently available with Ethernet, such as 10Gbit/s.

The FC roadmap on the Fibre Channel Industry Association’s web site shows the next iteration of 16Gbit/s will not hit the streets until 2011, by which time the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ 40Gbit/s and 100Gbit/s standards might already be helping to prop up the internet.

One of the arguments against FC was that it was another network that needed managing, and that argument still exists. But is the FC SAN manager likely to say to the LAN manager, “Yes, of course you can have my job”. That internal scenario reflects the external battle between FC and Ethernet, which now seems to be swinging decisively in the latter’s favour.

The question is, will FC be crushed under an avalanche of iSCSI or will its twilight be a managed one?