New Mellanox Software Defined FCoE Switching Solution

Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. and Jeda Networks, Inc., in software-defined storage networking (SDSN), announced an efficient FCoE switching solution.

Mellanox Ethernet switches integrated with Jeda Networks’ Fabric Network Controller (FNC) software deliver a solution that is easier to manage and less costly than existing FCoE switch offerings.

The software defined storage solution separates the FC Fabric (FCF) control plane from the data plane, supporting high-speed FCoE data flows over lossless Ethernet switches while centralizing the FCF management through a highly-available FNC server. Storage traffic flows over 10/40Gb/s links with the low latency, and management is simplified and centralized.

“The ability to make reliable FC storage networking faster and more affordable is a huge benefit of this new breed of FCoE solution,” said Paul Evans, principal architect at system integrator, Daystrom Technologies. “Many of our customers have been interested in FCoE, but didn’t see enough benefits to make them switch from their existing FC platforms. The Mellanox SDSN solution with Jeda Networks changes that: lower-latency, faster connections, simple management and lower cost. It’s a compelling solution that appeals to all parts of a business.“

The solution is designed to work with industry-standard CNAs and storage arrays that support FCoE. Setup and management is up to four times faster and easier than with competing switches.

“We have been impressed with the performance and capabilities of the Mellanox Ethernet switches,” said Stuart Berman, CEO and founder, Jeda Networks. “Together with Mellanox, we can deliver a robust, high-performance FCoE fabric to customers that can support both 10GbE and 40GbE with 2.5X higher performance than 16Gb FC.“

“The promise of FCoE is delivering performance for business applications on converged Ethernet networks while reducing TCO,” said John Kim, director of storage marketing, Mellanox. “Mellanox continues to lead in high-bandwidth and low-latency networking solutions for storage, and we’re proud to add FCoE to our portfolio. Now our switches can support IB, RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE), and FCoE, giving customers more flexibility and performance to connect their enterprise storage.“

Jeda Networks has qualified Mellanox switches with the popular FCoE CNAs. Jeda and Mellanox are currently qualifying the FCoE solution with multiple storage array vendors.

Mellanox expects FCoE switches to become available in May, 2014.