Dell and pals mash parts together, squeeze out first 16Gb FC stack

Dell's Compellent unit has worked with Brocade, Emulex and QLogic to offer the first end-to-end 16Gbit/s Fibre Channel storage networking setup, speeding access to SAN data. This is a good win for Brocade, especially as Dell has its own Force 10 networking competency, but that is for Ethernet, not Fibre Channel (FC). It's also …

[Anonymous Coward]

The 16Gb Fibre Channel Dilemma

Most of the major vendors of FC storage use embedded Tachyon QE8 8Gb FC protocol chips from PMC Sierra in their front-end adapters. But PMC Sierra has stopped the further development of FC protocol chips because of diminishing marginal returns, see http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/FC_and_Ethernet_as_a_Single_Solution_Set .

Therefore the major storage vendors must switch the FC protocol chip source und change the firmware appropriately. I think that Emulex is in the best position as coming FC protocol chip supplier. An example from the past : 3PAR has used the Emulex "Arnold" chip in their 4-port 4Gb FC adapters.

Storage vendors like Dell Compellent which are using "normal" PCI Express FC HBAs have a clear time-to-market advantage for 16 Gb FC, they need only new target mode drivers. All in all we see a slow transition to 16Gb FC resulting from PMC Sierra`s policy.

[M. B.]

SC8000...

...not SC800. The next generation Storage Center controllers are SC8000's.

[Nate Amsden]

first stack?

can hardly call it first if it's still upwards of 6 months away from being available to customers.

in any case it shouldn't be a big deal, 16Gbps is more useful for switch cross connects and stuff, unless your incredibly port constrained on your storage - something Compellent is not. Loading up on 16Gbps ports on the storage isn't going to do a whole lot since the back end isn't going to be able to push all that much (and most workloads will only use a tiny fraction of it).

I'd be curious how may ports are on an adapter - myself I'd rather take say a 2 or 4-port 8Gbps adapter than a 1 or 2-port 16Gbps card. But I suppose it's nice to have options.

Most likely anyone using such a system is going to be running MPIO which means you'll be shifting your bits over multiple FC connections any ways.