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QLogic Converged Network Adapters

FCoE and Enhanced Ethernet
Basics
1. What is a CNA? answer: Converged Network adapters, or CNas, support both data networking (TCP/IP) and storage networking (fC) traffic on a single I/O adapter using two new technologies: Enhanced Ethernet and fibre Channel over Ethernet (fCoE). 2. What is Enhanced Ethernet? answer: Enhanced Ethernet (aka DataCenter Ethernet or Converged Enhanced Ethernet) refers to new enhancements to the existing Ethernet standard that eliminate Ethernets inherently lossy nature and make 10Gb Ethernet a viable storage networking transport. See the Enhanced Ethernet section later in this faq for more details. 3. What is FCoE? answer: fibre Channel over Ethernet, or fCoE, is a new technology defined by the T11 standards body that allows traditional fC storage networking traffic to travel over an Ethernet link by encapsulating fC frames inside Layer 2 Ethernet frames. Visit www.fcoe.com for in-depth details of this new technology.

Frequently Asked Questions by Pre-Sales Partners and End User Prospects

CNa Benefits
4. What is driving CNA adoption? answer: CNas have generated significant industry interest because they reduce data center Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) while preserving existing data and storage networking investment. Data centers have traditionally built separate data networks (TCP/IP over Ethernet) and storage networks (fC). CNas converge data and storage networking onto a single adapter, which results in lower adapter, cabling, switch, power, cooling, and management costs. Since fCoE uses fC protocol, existing investment in fC storage is preserved. 5. Do CNAs preserve traditional FC concepts such as WWN, LUN masking, zoning, etc? answer: Yes, the fCoE spec has been designed to keep these familiar fC concepts, thereby minimizing the disruption of adding CNas to an existing network and reducing the amount of data center personnel education required. 6. How do CNAs enable reliable storage networking given Ethernets inherent lossy nature? answer: CNas implement the new Enhanced Ethernet standard to eliminate Ethernets lossy behavior and ensure the same reliable, in-order transmission provided by native fibre Channel. This is due to the new Priority-based flow Control feature, which extends Ethernets 802.3x PaUSE feature to accommodate different traffic classes. See the Enhanced Ethernet section later in this faq for more details. 7. What applications benefit the most from CNAs? answer: applications that currently utilize Ethernet NICs and/or fC HBas will benefit from CNas.

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QLogic Converged Network Adapters Frequently Asked Questions

8. Why are CNAs better for virtualization? answer: a major drive behind the surge towards virtualization in the data center is the promise of consolidating individual servers. CNas aid this consolidation effort by further reducing the number of adapters (i.e. I/O slots) required for data and storage networking. 9. What are the advantages of CNAs over 10GbE NICs with software initiators? answer: Unlike a CNa that offloads all fCoE stack processing to the adapter, software initiators rely on the server CPU to process the entire fCoE stack. at 10Gb speeds, the stack processing ties up a large percentage of CPU time, preventing the CPU from performing other tasks. Monopolizing the CPU will be especially unacceptable in virtualized environments, which require maximum CPU power to run multiple virtual machines. Therefore, fCoE software initiators will negatively impact the ability to consolidate servers through virtualization. 10. How secure is FCoE? Does it have encryption? answer: fCoE supports the same security and encryption protocols as standard fibre Channel. 11. Do CNAs support VLAN and other virtual configuration management? answer: Yes. CNas support the same security and virtual configurations as standard Ethernet NICs.

Comparing fCoE with Other Networking Technologies (fC, iSCSI, InfiniBand)

12. What are the advantages of FCoE over iSCSI? answer: Since fCoE is a fibre Channel technology, it can pass through an fCoE-capable switch and connect to existing fC storage, which is the standard for storage networks in enterprise data centers. fCoE also eliminates the bulky TCP/IP stack, which requires either a complex TOE implementation or significant CPU utilization to process. fCoE performance is suited for the enterprise data center, while iSCSI is still appropriate for the Small Medium Business (SMB) market, which has less strenuous storage networking needs. 13. What are the advantages of FCoE over InfiniBand? answer: While InfiniBand has extremely high performance and is capable of transmitting several networking classes, it has not traditionally been used for either data or storage networking. It has, however, become the standard networking interconnect for High Performance Computing (HPC) and clustering applications due to its very low latency capability. fCoEs strongest advantage over InfiniBand is that it leverages existing fC storage and industry proven drivers, whereas InfiniBand storage has little market penetration at this time. 14. Will FCoE solutions be more expensive than FC only solutions? answer: It is expected that fCoE CNas will carry a cost premium versus fC HBas due to the added functionality they provide. However, the end-user will experience an overall reduction in TCO due to the reduction in adapter, cabling, switch, power, cooling, and management costs. 15. Will there be a need for 16Gb FC only solutions now that FCoE solutions are being developed? answer: Yes. qLogic is still moving forward with a native fC roadmap for 16Gb speeds and beyond. It is expected that native fibre Channel will remain the standard for storage networking for many years. 16. What future speeds will FCoE support? answer: The Ethernet industry is deciding what speeds will be supported in the future. The two most likely candidates are 40Gb or 100Gb. fCoE will be supported on the speed chosen by the Ethernet industry.

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QLogic Converged Network Adapters Frequently Asked Questions

CNa Infrastructure Requirements

17. What infrastructure changes are needed with CNAs? answer: Implementing CNa technology requires installing CNas into servers that are connected to fCoE switches at the networks edge. This is the minimum infrastructure change required for data centers getting started with CNa technology, which preserves existing investment in core Ethernet infrastructure and fibre Channel fabric and storage. Over time, administrators may choose to upgrade the data centers core switches and storage to fCoE-capable models as the ecosystem develops. See the following diagrams for examples of transitioning the data center to CNas. The diagram on the left shows a current data center with servers containing separate Ethernet NICs and fC HBas connected to separate Ethernet and fC switches. The diagram on the right shows a data center implementing CNas, which are connected to fCoE switches. These diagrams demonstrate how CNas reduce the number of adapters, cables, and switches needed at the networks edge, while preserving the existing core network and storage infrastructure.

18. Do CNAs require an Enhanced Ethernet network? answer: No. However, implementing an Enhanced Ethernet network is strongly recommended to achieve high performance. Existing Ethernet switches are lossy, meaning they drop packets when the network is highly congested. Dropping packets causes a strong performance hit for storage networking. as shown in the previous diagram, however, it is possible to gradually upgrade your Ethernet network without a performance hit, starting with Enhanced Ethernet edge switches that can communicate with existing Ethernet switches. 19. Do CNAs require scrapping my existing Fibre Channel storage? answer: No. This is a major benefit of CNas with fCoE. as the previous diagram illustrates, the data centers infrastructure can be gradually upgraded starting at the fabric edge. 20. What transceiver options will CNAs support? answer: CNas are being designed to support a variety of copper and optical transceivers in the SfP+ pluggable form factor. These transceivers include copper twin-ax as well as optical SR, LR, and LRM, all of which have different cost and distance capability considerations. a 10GBase-T option is also planned. 21. What cabling do CNAs support? answer: CNas support a variety of cables. Copper twin-ax cables have integrated SfP+ transceivers and support a maximum distance of 10m. Multimode 62.5um and 50um optical fiber can be used with SR transceivers for a maximum distance of 300m. Newly developed LRM transceivers utilize existing 62.5um cabling and provide a maximum distance of 220m. Single mode optical fiber can be used with LR transceivers for a maximum distance of 10Km. finally, CaT6a cabling can be used with RJ45 connectors for 10GBase-T support.

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QLogic Converged Network Adapters Frequently Asked Questions

22. What are the primary differences in FCoE-capable switches and standard Ethernet switches? answer: fCoE-capable switches will recognize the new fCoE frame format, which includes a new Ethertype that is embedded into the Ethernet header to denote fCoE traffic. fCoE-capable switches will be programmed to either pass Ethernet frames to another Ethernet device or to strip the fibre Channel frames from the Ethernet frames to pass to a connected fibre Channel device. 23. Can I buy a CNA and use it in a pure FC environment until I get an FCoE switch? answer: No. a CNa must be combined with a fCoE-capable switch or gateway that can extract fC frames from the fCoE frames to enable communication with native fC devices.

fCoE Ecosystem
24. What adapter vendors will offer CNAs and in what time frame? answer: qLogic will launch their CNa product line in mid-2008. Other competing vendors are expected to launch CNas, as well as 10GbE NIC solutions with fCoE software initiators. 25. What switch vendors will offer FCoE-capable switches and in what time frame? answer: Nuova (a subsidiary of Cisco) will launch a line of fCoE-capable switches in mid-2008. Other switch vendors are expected to launch competing products at a later time. 26. What storage vendors will offer native FCoE storage and in what time frame? answer: It is expected that all major storage vendors will develop native fCoE storage, with initial products hitting the market as early as 2009. 27. Will switch vendors support FC storage and native FCoE storage? answer: Yes. Switch vendors will support both fC and native fCoE storage, as both technologies are expected to coexist for many years. 28. Will FC disk array software (failover, replication, etc.) work with CNAs? answer: Yes. fC disk array software will be 100-percent compatible with CNas. 29. Will FC tape library software (backup, restore) work with CNAs? answer: Yes. fC tape library software will be 100-percent compatible with CNas.

CNa Driver and Management Utility Support

30. What operating systems will be supported by CNAs? answer: qLogic CNas will be supported on the same wide variety of drivers as their standard fibre Channel HBas. 31. Will server virtualization vendors support FCoE CNAs? answer: Yes. all server virtualization vendors will add CNa support. 32. Will QLogic develop a single management utility for both native FC HBAs and FCoE CNAs? answer: Yes. qLogics SaNsurfer utility will transparently support both native fC HBas and fCoE CNas. 33. Are all FC and FCoE facilities (WWN, LUN masking, zoning, etc.) the same when used as a Storage Area Network (SAN) adapter? answer: Yes. This is a major strength of the fCoE approach. 34. Will FCoE Drivers be backward compatible with 8Gb, 4Gb, etc.? answer: Yes. qLogic will develop drivers that are compatible with both native fC and fCoE adapters. These drivers will leverage qLogics years of driver development experience to provide the most reliable fCoE solution on the market.

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QLogic Converged Network Adapters Frequently Asked Questions

Standards
35. When will Enhanced Ethernet and FCoE standards be officially ratified? answer: Enhanced Ethernet is expected to have a pre-standard Version 0 this year. first products will be shipped in conformance to this Version 0 pre-standard. full approval is expected to happen in 2009. 36. If these standards are not yet ratified, what happens if I buy CNAs from QLogic that are pre-standard, and then new standards are released? answer: qLogic will provide a simple firmware upgrade that will be downloadable from the qLogic website.

Enhanced Ethernet
37. What is the difference between Ethernet and Enhanced Ethernet? answer: Enhanced Ethernet adds several new features that eliminate Ethernets lossy behavior and makes it suitable for transporting storage networking. The four main additions are Priority-based flow Control (PfC), Congestion Notification (CN), Enhanced Transmission Selection (ETS), and DCB Capability Exchange Protocol (DCBX). 38. What is Priority-based Flow Control? answer: Priority-based flow Control (802.1qbb) allows the network to selectively pause different classes of traffic. for instance, a switch that is experiencing heavy traffic can pause (stop transmitting) data networking traffic while continuing to pass higher priority storage networking traffic. The priority classes can be defined using the 802.1p specification. 39. What is Congestion Notification? answer: Congestion Notification (802.1qau) allows a switch that is experiencing heavy traffic to signal its attached ports that they need to slow down or throttle their transmissions. These attached ports can then pass this message to their attached ports, which allows the whole network to throttle communication until the congestion is relieved. 40. What is Enhanced Transmission Selection? answer: Enhanced Transmission Selection (802.1qaz) helps maximize the use of available network bandwidth amongst traffic classes. When a certain class of traffic is not using its full allocated bandwidth, ETS allows other traffic classes to use the available bandwidth. 41. What is DCB Capability Exchange Protocol? answer: DCB Capability Exchange Protocol allows Enhanced Ethernet devices to convey and configure their Enhanced Ethernet capabilities with other attached Enhanced Ethernet devices. This protocol ensures a consistent configuration across the network. 42. Can CNAs be used as 10GbE NICs? answer: Yes. CNas are designed to transport data over 10Gb Ethernet connections. They can be used as 10GbE NICs if storage networking capability is not required. 43. Does Enhanced Ethernet still utilize Spanning Tree? answer: Yes, Enhanced Ethernet will still use the Spanning Tree protocol that is used in Ethernet today. However, there is an effort by the IETf to implement a more efficient bridging mechanism called transparent interconnect lots of links, or TRILL.

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QLogic Converged Network Adapters Frequently Asked Questions

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2008 qLogic Corporation. Specifications are subject to change without notice. all rights reserved worldwide. qLogic, the qLogic logo, and SaNsurfer are registered trademarks of qLogic Corporation. Cisco is a registered trademark of Cisco Systems, Inc. all other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Information supplied by qLogic Corporation is believed to be accurate and reliable. qLogic Corporation assumes no responsibility for any errors in this brochure. qLogic Corporation reserves the right, without notice, to make changes in product design or specifications.

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