>>On Thu, 26 May 2005, Florin Iucha wrote: >>>Do you have any links/references/howto on using Fiber Channel? I was >>>interested in the same thing, but I did not find any good references. >Ken Fuchs wrote: >>Rather than using Fibre Channel (FC), one might consider ATA/SATA over >>Ethernet (AoE). There's a good article on AoE in the June issue of >>Linux Magazine. There's also a less technical article on AoE in the >>June issue of Linux Journal. >>At least for new equipment, AoE network devices will be a about 1/10 the >>cost of FC devices. Josh Welch wrote: >Call me cynical, but it looks to me like ATA over Ethernet appears to be >a standard invented by one vendor and implemented by one vendor, who >also happened to write the article for Linux Journal (or Linux Magazine, >can't remember what I read). You are correct. Coraid (http://www.coraid.com/) created the standard and implemented the Linux device driver that is now included in the Torvalds (Vanilla) kernel. Currently, Coraid is the only company with a product that implements the required AoE hardware. The author of the Linux Magazine article works for Coraid. However, standards created by industry committees aren't necessary better than standards created by a single company. Also, the AoE standard is about as simple as possible, but not simpler. AoE appears to cost a tenth of SAN for those applications that don't need full SAN capabilities. Other companies are sure to make AoE hardware, unless Coraid ties things up with patents and royalties; I didn't check this aspect. All things considered, I still wouldn't mind exploring the possibilities of a new low cost technology like AoE. Sincerely, Ken Fuchs <kfuchs at winternet.com>