Advanced FCoE: extension of fibre channel over ethernet

Recently, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) has been gaining attention as a solution of LAN/SAN convergence in Data Centers. In FCoE, it is necessary to introduce "FCoE Forwarder (FCF)" and to replace legacy Ethernet switches with lossless Ethernet switches. Current FCoE, specified by FC-BB-5, has a scalability issue due to concentrating all operations of Userplane and Control-plane into FCF. Although FC-BB-6 project aims to solve the issue, it requires "FC/FCoE Data Forwarder (FDF)", which raises DC cost. In this paper, we propose a novel FCoE system, called Advanced FCoE (AFCoE), to realize large-scale FCoE system at low-cost. In AFCoE, network edge devices have mechanisms to separate FCoE frames into Userplane frames or Control-plane frames. The User-plane traffic is directly forwarded by legacy Ethernet switches to remote edge devices, while the Control-plane traffic is forwarded to a controlling server and processed there. In addition, reliable data transport technology is introduced for frame loss caused in legacy Ethernet switches. We also show the validation results of a prototype AFCoE system.