ACADEMIA

The pace of enterprise network convergence is tempered by a range of factors—some centered on technology, some are not. Despite a long-standing goal to converge LAN and SAN traffic on the same network fabric, most enterprise data centers continue to utilize multiple interconnects, such as InfiniBand and Fibre Channel, while  continuing to evaluate emergent protocols such as Fibre Channel over (Enhanced) Ethernet (FCoE). The technological considerations include issues such as protocol maturity, latencies and most importantly, lossless reliability and distance support. In addition, users need to also take into consideration the needs of new technologies and services like Server and Storage Virtualization and Cloud Computing on these environments. There are political issues at work here, too. Complete convergence—though attractive in theory—suggests that an enterprise’s SAN group would entrust all of its mission-critical traffic to the responsibility and management system of the networking group, and this convergence isn’t likely to occur soon.