Many Cisco UCS systems connect to SAN. FC vs FCoE, that is the question.
Cisco UCS be design is CNA vi FCoE to FI, and can continue out FCoE or FC. On the UCS platform the FCoE from CNA to FI is transparent and seems to work well. Does throw off standard SNMP IOD’s used for performance but that is no big deal as NetFlow is part os UCSM 2.2x. Will see if that breaks down the CNA traffic through FI.
So FC vs. FCoE? At around 2.1x Policy Based Zoning came along on UCS. Policy Based Zoning is something Brocade should have figured out long ago. My preference is connecting the FI’s to FC SAN via FC (will spare the fine details on this and different options) and using Policy Based Zoning. Brocade fabrics work fine but can not benefit from Policy Based Zoning at the FI (blah).
FCoE in my opinion (putting on flame suit) is a solution created for a problem that does not exist. Deploying the QoS etc on Nexus 5k or 7k and extra complexity does not serve. Most network engineers would avoid the unneeded complexity and get some MDS switches. It is like “Redistribution” between OSPF and EIGRP, it looks great on paper but in the real world a skillfully placed static route usually works just fine. Since a SAN Device will have a set number of ports needed for FCoE or FC, don’t see the reduced cabling. This is all from the Cisco UCS perspective.
More on all this:
Cisco VP: We’re still into FC storage (but FCoE is doing fine)
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