Comments on: Watch out Cisco http://www.thehotaisle.com/2009/05/11/watch-out-cisco/ Fresh Thinking on IT Operations Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:02:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Watch Out, Cisco « Enterprise Strategy Group http://www.thehotaisle.com/2009/05/11/watch-out-cisco/comment-page-1/#comment-7193 Watch Out, Cisco « Enterprise Strategy Group Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:46:24 +0000 http://www.thehotaisle.com/?p=1354#comment-7193 [...] Read the entire blog entry here >> All views and opinions expressed in ESG blog posts are intended to be those of the post's author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc., or its clients. ESG bloggers do not and will not engage in any form of paid-for blogging. Click to see our complete Disclosure Policy. For important information about using this content, please review our Terms & Conditions Tags: articles, Cisco, cluster, feature, high density, Linux, SAN [...] [...] Read the entire blog entry here >> All views and opinions expressed in ESG blog posts are intended to be those of the post's author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc., or its clients. ESG bloggers do not and will not engage in any form of paid-for blogging. Click to see our complete Disclosure Policy. For important information about using this content, please review our Terms & Conditions Tags: articles, Cisco, cluster, feature, high density, Linux, SAN [...]

]]> By: thehotaisle http://www.thehotaisle.com/2009/05/11/watch-out-cisco/comment-page-1/#comment-1593 thehotaisle Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:33:25 +0000 http://www.thehotaisle.com/?p=1354#comment-1593 Thank you for your reply, informative and useful.<br><br>Steve Thank you for your reply, informative and useful.

Steve

]]> By: meh130 http://www.thehotaisle.com/2009/05/11/watch-out-cisco/comment-page-1/#comment-1591 meh130 Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:48:53 +0000 http://www.thehotaisle.com/?p=1354#comment-1591 This is deceptive. There is no more requirement to "forklift out" Catalyst 6500s to use Nexus 5000 FCoE than there is with Xsigo InfiniBand. Both the Nexus 5000 with FCoE and the InfiiBand Xsigo with the InfiniBand vHBA storage protocol replace the access layer FC and Ethernet switching infrastructure. Existing access layer Catalyst 6500s (in either case) can be reprovisioned to the distribution tier.<br><br>There is no disruption to existing distribution and core Ethernet infrastructure, and no disruption to core FC SAN director infrastructure in either case.<br><br>The value prop for either solution is similar. The difference is, Cisco uses Ethernet as the transport, IP over Ethernet as the IP protocol, and FC as the storage protocol. Xsigo uses InfiniBand as the transport, vNIC (a mix of IP over InifiniBand and Sockets Direct Protocol over InfiniBand) as the IP protocol, and vHBA as the storage protocol. vHBA is a newer storage protocol than the more mature SCSI RDMA Protocol (SRP) or iSCSI Extensions for RDMA (iSER). vHBA will likely be replaced with Fibre Channel over InfiniBand (FCoIB), which is being championed by InfiniBand silicon vendor Mellanox due to the industry momentum behind FCoE. The transition to FCoIB will likely be disruptive, requiring new drivers on the servers and new firmware on the I/O Directors. Perhaps Xsigo will not embrace FCoIB, but it is likely FCoIB will become a preferred storage protocol for InfiniBand, as Mellanox is the only vendor of InfiniBand host channel adapter cards.<br><br>The last time I checked, the Xsigo I/O director was not in EMC's support matrix, while the Nexus 5000 with FCoE was. The other advantage of an Ethernet solution like the Nexus 5000 is it also natively supports existing IP storage protocols like CIFS, NFS, and iSCSI. This is deceptive. There is no more requirement to “forklift out” Catalyst 6500s to use Nexus 5000 FCoE than there is with Xsigo InfiniBand. Both the Nexus 5000 with FCoE and the InfiiBand Xsigo with the InfiniBand vHBA storage protocol replace the access layer FC and Ethernet switching infrastructure. Existing access layer Catalyst 6500s (in either case) can be reprovisioned to the distribution tier.

There is no disruption to existing distribution and core Ethernet infrastructure, and no disruption to core FC SAN director infrastructure in either case.

The value prop for either solution is similar. The difference is, Cisco uses Ethernet as the transport, IP over Ethernet as the IP protocol, and FC as the storage protocol. Xsigo uses InfiniBand as the transport, vNIC (a mix of IP over InifiniBand and Sockets Direct Protocol over InfiniBand) as the IP protocol, and vHBA as the storage protocol. vHBA is a newer storage protocol than the more mature SCSI RDMA Protocol (SRP) or iSCSI Extensions for RDMA (iSER). vHBA will likely be replaced with Fibre Channel over InfiniBand (FCoIB), which is being championed by InfiniBand silicon vendor Mellanox due to the industry momentum behind FCoE. The transition to FCoIB will likely be disruptive, requiring new drivers on the servers and new firmware on the I/O Directors. Perhaps Xsigo will not embrace FCoIB, but it is likely FCoIB will become a preferred storage protocol for InfiniBand, as Mellanox is the only vendor of InfiniBand host channel adapter cards.

The last time I checked, the Xsigo I/O director was not in EMC's support matrix, while the Nexus 5000 with FCoE was. The other advantage of an Ethernet solution like the Nexus 5000 is it also natively supports existing IP storage protocols like CIFS, NFS, and iSCSI.

]]> By: VM Digest http://www.thehotaisle.com/2009/05/11/watch-out-cisco/comment-page-1/#comment-7112 VM Digest Mon, 11 May 2009 11:17:27 +0000 http://www.thehotaisle.com/?p=1354#comment-7112 <span class="topsy_trackback_comment"><span class="topsy_twitter_username"><span class="topsy_trackback_content">Is there an alternative to the Cisco UCP that enables LAN and SAN ... http://bit.ly/LT9bD</span></span> Is there an alternative to the Cisco UCP that enables LAN and SAN … http://bit.ly/LT9bD

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