Cisco's statement about not putting FC in the nexus 7000 are just plain silly. While the MDS is still a viable platform, for those of us without one, having to buy it to connect native FC is not viable.
Cisco has the module, the software and the ability to easily put a 16 port FC card in the Nexus 7k, they just WON'T. Ridiculous.
FC, MDS, and Nexus
Anon:
You will not need an MDS to connect to native fibre channel in Cisco's unified fabric architecture. The SAN-facing side of the unified fabric switch speaks fully standards compliant FC, so it will connect to you existing SAN infrastructure, whether it be based on Cisco MDS or another vendor's switch. You can see this today with both the Nexus 5000 and the Cisco UCS--upstream, they will connect to anyone's standards compliant FC switch.
Regards,
Omar
Omar Sultan
Cisco
blogs.cisco.com/datacenter
Not Exactly
Omar
YOu are correct I can connect my N-5k and the UCS 6k to my fiber channel environment but not the 7k. So after dumping a metric-butt-load of cash on the 7k, I have to buy the 5k or an MDS to bridge FCOE to FC. If Cisco wants to try and explain this to my management go ahead, good luck to you.
N7K Roadmap
Anon:
You are correct, the N7K currently does not offer IEEE DCB or FCoE, capable I/O modules, although, as you point out, the currently shipping system is fully capable of supporting lossless transport. As we noted earlier this this year, they are on the way and you will be hearing more definitive information in the next few months. With the N5K and the UCS, we were able to move ahead of the standards bodies in the access layer because we had some level of control over both sides of the link (server-side and access-switch-side) and, as the standards have been ratified, we have bought the systems into compliance. WIth an agg/core layer switch, things are more complicated, so we have to wait until the standards are a bit more gelled.
Regardless, investment in the N7K is protected and you will eventually be able to connect it to your FCoE-capable SAN switch (ours or someone else's) without having to by additional intermediate hardware.
If you need more definitive details on the roadmap, your account team or Cisco channel partner can help you out.
So, in the near term, if you use rack switches, the FCoE migration path is simple: rack server > N5K > SAN Switch. If you use end-of-row switching, all the pieces are not there yet, but eventually you will be able to go server > N7K > SAN Switch. With FIP and the eventual availability of multi-hop FCoE, you can further simplify and consolidate your data center traffic.
If you have five or so min, check out this blog post I did earlier this year, which lays out the migration path to a unified fabric: http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/comments/unified_fabric_getting_from_here_to_there/
Regards,
Omar
Omar Sultan
Cisco
blogs.cisco.com/datacenter
Missing the Point
You keep on talking about the migration to FCOE but that assumes changes at the host level. What do I do with my 200 FC connected servers (using Brocade today) if I want to use my N7k? If Cisco would put native FC in the N7k I could begin moving hosts to the 7k and get rid of the Brocade.
Its funny I have had this conversation numerous times with Cisco, PMs, BU leaders, SEs, AMs, CSEs, etc. Everyone says the same thing but once they start thinking of living with this stuff realizes there is a gap in the product.
CISCO PLEASE COME TO YOUR SENSES AND PUT NATIVE FC IN THE NEXUS 7K, PEOPLE WHO HAVE THE MDS WILL KEEP THEM BUT CUSTOMERS WITHOUT ONE WILL JUST DUMP MORE MONEY INTO THE NEXUS LINE OR BUY FROM JUNIPER OR BROCADE OR HP AND HEDGE THEIR BETS.
Migration Scenarios
Anon:
Our working assumption has always been that folks will want to leave their SAN alone (regardless of whether it is ours or Brocade's), so most migration scenarios are built around delivering FCoE to a SAN director that has FCoE interfaces, hence, preserving their existing FC SAN environment until multi-protocol storage or FCoE-attached storage is more pervasive in their environments.
I'll take your sentiments and pass them along to the CDO folks.
Regards,
Omar
Omar Sultan
Cisco
blogs.cisco.com/datacenter
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