The Communication Industries Research group (CIR) has
forcast that fibre channel revenue will double to $1.7bn in 2008,
driven by growth in storage area networking amid claims that fibre
channel will cease after 2007.
"While Sans are often associated with disaster recovery and
backup, rapid data retrieval for financial trading is sustaining
much of the market's growth," it said.
"Additionally, with larger frame sizes, and its Class 1
dedicated point-to-point operation, fibre channel is successfully
withstanding the challenge from Ethernet in the storage
market."
The lack of interest in merging Lans and Sans is stunting the
growth of Ethernet for storage applications, it added.
Sans, particularly ones with more than 5TBytes of capacity,
deliver a lot of data to relatively fewer end points. Ethernet is
meant for delivering smaller amounts of data to more end
points.
Its data frames can hold up to 1,518 bytes, whereas fibre
channel frames can hold 2,048 bytes - 25% more.
Fibre channel also has a link path or virtual network set up for
point-to-point communications with paths across the San set up from
the HBA through switch ports to Logical Unit Numbers and disc
drives.
When Ethernet is used for large data flows with TCP/IP, the
protocol requires acknowledgments to be sent in response to
delivered packets. Fibre channel is better suited to San data
traffic flows, and its advantages strengthen as the San's stored
data increases in size, CIR said.
Below around 5TBytes capacity Ethernet appeared to have the
advantage.
It is easier to upgrade a Nas to an Ethernet San than fibre
channel because the existing Lan infrastructure and IT staff
knowledge can be used.
Fibre channel's roadmap from 1gbps to 2gbps to 4gbps to 8gbps
with backward compatibility should also enable it to keep ahead as
Ethernet heads towards 10gbps and faster speeds in the
datacentre.
Chris Mellor writes for Techworld.com