Cisco Nexus 7000 is the first product in history that support Lossless Ethernet. This is really a breakthrough in Ethernet technology, because one key element that makes Ethernet was so fast is that Ethernet is allowed to drop packet to achive higher speed during data transmission. So dropping packet is really an Ethernet's nature.
There is another technology called Fiber Channel switching, that normally is used in SAN (Storage Area Network). Different with Ethernet, Fiber Channel does not drop packet by using many advanced technology. Packet drop, even very few, could cause data corruption during data replication process.
Cisco manages to combine the best of both world : The Speedy Ethernet with The Safe Fiber Channel, which results in Lossless Ethernet. The design took 4 years from scratch, combining Cisco knowledge & experience in Ethernet and Fiber Channel.
Lossless Ethernet is the key element in Data Center 3.0 "Unified Fabric" that enable Server, Storage, and Networking protocols running in one fabric.
The current release of Nexus 7000 support Gigabit Ethernet and 10 GE (max 512 port 10 GE is supported in one chassis today). And support for Fiber Channel will be via FCoE (Fiber Channel over Ethernet) some time in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment