The future of Storage Area Networks

[spidey07]

So I'm not much on the exact details of the future of fiber channel. I hear rumblings of 10G and 4G.

Anybody have any insight, specifically fiber optic requirements (exact specifications for the fiber, 62.5 or 50, modal bandwidth, distance limitations, bandwidth, use of WDM technology/laser etc)

thanks in advanced. I've tried to find info but its coming up a little grey. This is for a large fiberoptic buildout and want to make sure I've got the physcial layer covered for 10 G ethernet AND future of fibre channel.

 

[Cscutch]

Don't know much about Fiber Channel. But I am guessing you may find some info here:

Storage Pipeline

Chris

 

[dphantom]

See if this link helps you out. I'm looking at upgrading our SAN, but nothing to your level.

http://www.fibrechannel.org/NEWS/fcia050207.html

 

[spidey07]

thanks guys, that helps.

I'm just thinking outloud about what kind of fiber infrastructure they'll require.

 

[halfadder]

Long term, storage is going to IP (things like iSCSI). Heh, long term, EVERYTHING's going to IP.

Right now most current installations use 2gbit fibre, often two such links to each host and raid box if they can afford the cards and ports on the FC switches.

The current buzz is 4 gbit FC, but the long term excitement is storage over 10gbit ethernet. Don't go buying your cards yet, later models will have better on-card coprocessing, etc.

 

[spidey07]

heh, I think the SAN market is desparately trying to keep up with the network/IP field.

And they're failing miserably. Everything will be ethernet/IP.

 

[Garion]

I'll buy that - ISCSI or NAS is the way of the future. Buying individual HBA's and separate (and VERY expensive) fiber channel switches has become too pricey to complete with network-based solutions and is too clunky to manage. Even if you put in a separate VLAN and dedicated NICs on each box for storage, it's still a fraction of the price. IMHO, fiber channel will become a niche technology used for backups and even then it'll be supplanted by GigE-connected tape drives pretty soon.

Plan to beef up your network core and go out and talk to Network Appliance. Their NAS solutions are excellent as a SAN replacement and REALLY shine in replacing a traditional Microsoft/NFS file server.

- G

 

[cmetz]

iSCSI isn't baked yet. The protocol was designed by too many people who didn't understand the whole IP thing very well, and thus is very broken. If you really want a SAN, you're probably best off with Fibre Channel and just dealing with the high cost.

NAS IMO is the way to go in the mid to low cost tier. NetApps are the best in that space.

If I were building a fiber infrastructure, I'd look at what you need to do 10G Ethernet - that should cover 1GE and FC pretty well too. There's a lot of sharing among various standards groups when you get close to the physical layer.

 

[spidey07]

yeah, it looks like 50 micron fiber at 2000 MHz modal bandwidth is what is preferred for 10G applications. Its a little pricey at 5 bucks a foot for 12 strand.

62.5 just can't cut it.

 

[cmetz]

What kind of losses do you get if you try mating 62.5u patches/gear to 50u long-haul, assuming a long enough conditioning cable? Is it reasonably usable with 1G and today's FC?

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: cmetz
What kind of losses do you get if you try mating 62.5u patches/gear to 50u long-haul, assuming a long enough conditioning cable? Is it reasonably usable with 1G and today's FC?

That's one of those situations where "yeah, it may work but highly unrecommended", I don't know about the exact loss but if you test it for 1000 Base with a cable scanner it will fail. (too much loss) I was playing around with our fiber tester one day just scanning some patch cords trying to get used to the scanner and couldn't figure out why some patch cords were failing.

It was because one end was 62.5 and the other 50 (two patch cords with a coupler in the middle)