Using Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and related technologies, data centers can consolidate data traffic onto a single network switch, simplifying their environments, promoting virtualization, and substantially reducing power and cooling costs. This emerging technology is drawing immense excitement, but few enterprise IT decision-makers and implementers truly understand it. I/O Consolidation in the Data Center is the only complete, up-to-date guide to FCoE. FCoE innovators Silvano Gai and Claudio DeSanti (chair of the T11 FCoE standards working group) systematically explain the technology: its benefits, tradeoffs, and what it will take to implement it successfully in production environments. Unlike most other discussions of FCoE, this book fully reflects the final, recently-approved industry standard. The authors also present five detailed case studies illustrating typical FCoE adoption scenarios, as well as an extensive Q and A section addressing the issues enterprise IT professionals raise most often. This is a fully updated version of Silvano Gai's privately-published book on FCoE, written for leading FCoE pioneer Nuova Systems before the company was acquired by Cisco. Nearly 12,000 copies of that book have already been distributed, demonstrating the immense interest in FCoE technology, and the scarcity of reliable information that has existed about it.
Silvano Gai, who grew up in a small village near Asti, Italy, has more than 27 years of experience
in computer engineering and computer networks. He is the author of several books and technical
publications on computer networking and multiple Internet Drafts and RFCs. He is responsible
for 30 issued patents and 50 patent applications. His background includes 7 years as a full
professor of computer engineering, tenure track, at Politecnico di Torino, Italy, and seven years
as a researcher at the CNR (Italian National Council for Scientifi c Research). For the past 12
years, he has been in Silicon Valley where, in the position of Cisco Fellow, he was an architect
of the Cisco Catalyst family of network switches, of the Cisco MDS family of storage networking
switches, and of the Nexus family of data center switches. Silvano teaches a course on I/O
Consolidation, Data Center Ethernet, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet at Stanford University
(see http://scpd.stanford.edu/certifi cates/fcoe).
Claudio DeSanti is a Distinguished Engineer in the Advanced Architectures & Research organization
at Cisco. He represents Cisco in several National and International Standards Bodies,
such as INCITS Technical Committee T11, IEEE 802.1, IETF, and in industry associations. He
is vice chairman of the INCITS T11 Technical Committee, chairperson of various working
groups, including FC-BB-5, where FCoE has been developed, and technical editor of different
standards, including IEEE 802.1Qbb, where Priority-based Flow Control is defi ned. He is
author of several patents and international publications, including ten RFCs in IETF and other
standards in the American National Standard Institute. He received many honors and awards,
including the INCITS 2008 Technical Excellence Award, the INCITS 2007 Team Award, and the
INCITS 2006 Gene Milligan Award for Effective Committee Management. Claudio’s research
interests include network protocols, storage networking, routing, and security. He holds a Ph.D.
in computer engineering from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, Italy.
