> The Welcome message at Open-FCoE is dated November 25th, so this news has been some time in reaching us.

So maybe FCOE isn't as fast as native FC :-)

FCoE is going to be great for the storage vendors. As it uses standard FC protocols, all they need to do is to put a FCoE front end on their storage arrays. All their software will run unchanged.

For the switch guys and the end users, not quite so straight forward. FCOE will NOT run over standard 10G Ethernet switches. New switches will be required to deliver a reliable transport (enhancements needed to the Ethernet standard) and will also be required to run FC specific services such as the FC nameserver.

So don't think you can run FCoE without a complete datacentre refresh.

"supercomputers and mainframes???"

Come on guys get with the programme a lot of facilities that use data transfer as their bread and butter use fibre or copper. Frankly i would go as far as every television editing company (my industry) uses fibre to the edit work stations which nowhere near mainframes or super computers more like desktops with ego problems.

"10Gb Ethernet offers similar speeds, though is still a developing technology," I think the technology is more than mature and frankly is being rolled out in facilities across the country to the desktop.

http://tvbeurope.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1057&Itemid=46

> FCOE will NOT run over standard 10G Ethernet switches.

FCOE will run just fine over any switches that correctly implements PAUSE flow-control. The requirement for per-priority flow-control is a ploy to sell more expensive switches. Got to keep those fat FC margins somehow...