DCB/FCoE Solutions

Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is an encapsulation protocol that enables the transport of Fibre Channel storage traffic over a version of Ethernet called Data Center Bridging (DCB). FCoE encapsulates the entire Fibre Channel frame, keeping it intact and unchanged, into DCB frames. This allows FCoE to preserve existing Fibre Channel services and use existing management tools. Enhanced with Fibre Channel-like features, DCB can carry storage traffic while preserving data integrity. The new DCB features are Priority Flow Control (PFC), Enhanced Transmission Selection (ETS) or bandwidth management, and Data Center Bridging Exchange (DCBX).

With DCB/FCoE, organizations can configure their servers with Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) from Brocade or third-party vendors, to allow the flow of Fibre Channel SAN traffic and networking LAN traffic over common links. In other words, SAN and LAN traffic can share one physical link.