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Fibre Channel has a laser-focus on speed and continues to progress at a blistering pace. Fibre Channel is continually evolving to higher speeds to meet the high bandwidth needs of storage applications. When large blocks of data are moved between servers and storage, the performance of the application is directly dependent on how fast the data can fly. The storage industry has come to rely on Fibre Channel to deliver superior performance and reliability for mission-critical applications.

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Fibre Channel is at the heart of the data center connecting servers to storage, and relied upon for the most strenuous workloads. For example, Fibre Channel is deployed in many high-end applications in financial and governmental institutions where reliability and scalability are paramount. Fibre Channel consistently delivers greater than “five 9s” or 99.999% uptime as measured by vendors and customers in data center deployments worldwide. Fibre Channel storage area networks are often completely redundant to ensure constant service and uncorrupted data without single points of failure.

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Featured Video

Webcasts

Webcasts

Presenters:

  • Kamal Bakshi, Cisco
  • Mark Jones, Broadcom
  • Nishant Lodha, Marvell
  • David Rodgers, EXFO

Watch on FCIA Youtube Channel
Watch on-demand on BrightTalk
Click here to view the presentation slides.

The majority of today’s SAN infrastructure leverage the traditional SCSI/FCP protocol. The relatively new NVMe/FC protocol has become ubiquitous in enterprise storage offerings, delivering multiple advantages including high performance, low tail latency, and precision error recovery that can run on the same FC SAN infrastructure. In this talk we will discuss:

  • The architecture of NVMe/FC at protocol level
  • Building blocks of NVMe like NVMe subsystem
  • NVMe controllers, Namespaces etc.
  • Overview of FC-NVMe T11 standards
  • Key advantages of NVMe/FC, including application use cases

Presenters:

  • Mark Jones, Broadcom
  • Kiran Ranabhor, Cisco
  • Dean Wallace, Marvell

Click here to watch on-demand
Click here to watch on the FCIA Youtube channel.
Click here to view the presentation deck.

In this webcast we will discuss 128GFC, the new Fibre Channel speed recently ratified by the T11 Fibre Channel standards committee. This new speed takes Fibre Channel further into the future. The latest generation of Fibre Channel (128GFC) has a rate of 112.2Gbps (PAM4) for a single lane variant. This speed is 5.6% faster than 100Gb Ethernet single lane variants. Fibre Channel was able to increase the speed and still maintain two generations of backward compatibility which is key to Fibre Channel success. Previous generation SFP optical modules (32GFC and 64GFC) will be able to plug into the latest generation of Fibre Channel 128GFC products and 128GFC products will be able to seamlessly interoperate with previous generations of Fibre Channel products.

128GFC products will support existing infrastructure of fiber cables for multi-mode variants and single mode variants. 128GFC is also able to support the previous reach of 100 meters of OM4 without sacrificing performance in link quality or increasing errors (BER).

The Fibre Channel committee also streamlined the process for link speed negotiation and training which are key to multiple generations of backward compatibility. In the webcast we will discuss this significant Fibre Channel advancement.

Presenters:

  • Nishant Lodha, Marvell
  • Ramya Krishnamurthy, HPE
  • Rupin Mohan, HPE
  • Ajay Kumar , HPE
  • Ashish Neekhra, HPE

Click here to watch on FCIA’s Youtube Channel
Click here to watch on BrightTalk
Click here to view the presentation slides.

Machine learning (ML) is the study and development of algorithms that improves with use of data. As it deals with the training data, the machine algorithm changes and grows. Most ML models begin with “training data” which the machine processes and begins to “understand” statistically.

Machine learning models are resource intensive. To anticipate, validate, and recalibrate millions of times, they demand a significant amount of processing power. Training an ML model might slow down your machine and hog local resources.

The proposed solution is to containerize ML with NVMe over Fibre Channel (FC-NVMe) by putting your ML models in a container. In this webcast, we will highlight the benefits of containerizing ML models with FC-NVMe, discussing:

  • Containers are lightweight software packages that run-in isolation on the host computing environment. Containers are predictable, repetitive, and immutable. This ensures that no unexpected issues occur while moving them to a new system or between environments. A cluster of containers can be created with a configuration suited for machine learning requirements. Containers are also easy to coordinate (or “orchestrate”).
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) at scale sets the standard for storage infrastructure in terms of capacity and performance, making it one of the most crucial factors for containers.
  • FC-NVMe is an extension of the NVMe network protocol to Fibre Channel delivering faster and more efficient connectivity between storage and servers and providing the highest throughput and fastest response times.
  • The combination of FC-NVMe with an NVMe SSD solution with containerized ML allows orchestration to scale data-intensive workloads and increase data mining speed.

Click here to watch on-demand!

Presenters:

  • Mark Jones, Broadcom
  • Michael Klempa, Amphenol

Click here to register!
Click here to view the presentation slides.

Innovation and growth in Fibre Channel adoption continues to grow – and your career can too. Yet there is a lack of training at the academic level in teaching the basics of Fibre Channel as many universities consider the technology mature. The need for beginner-level courses as well as more advanced education for professionals wanting to achieve a deeper level of technical understanding in the subject has led to a number of companies active in the Fibre Channel industry to step up and fill the void.

In fact, between the many vendors in this space and the FCIA itself, there is a plethora of resources. These include classes, webcasts, videos and white papers that cover topics ranging from Fibre Channel basics to fabric notifications, zoning fundamentals, standards development and instructions on how to become a Fibre Channel-based SAN administrator.

How to take advantage of all these educational Fibre Channel resources will be the topic of our this live FCIA webcast on April 13, 2022.

2021-2022 Solutions Guide

With 2020 in the rearview mirror, we can see the impact the global pandemic has left on us all and the resulting changes to our everyday lives and the way we work….

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You purchased a new Fibre Channel storage system replete with the best new features and functions including support for your legacy implementation and equipment, and it sets the table for incorporating the new, higher speed connectivity and devices you intended…

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SAN Fabric – Hmm…what is a Fabric? Does calling a Fibre Channel network a SAN Fabric matter? Please continue reading to find out why…

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For decades now, Fibre Channel has been the network of choice for storage when deploying critical applications like ERP to run highly complex and large organizations or financial applications at the largest banks and global stock exchanges…

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Fibre Channel has come a long way since it was first approved as an ANSI standard in 1994 to become the trusted and reliable networking solution it is today that delivers the efficiency and speed necessary for storage to be networked and shared across multiple hosts…

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