Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/4636
ILTA White Paper Infrastructure Technologies 24 speeds, jumbo or giant frames should be supported by the switch. Also like iSCSI, the Ethernet switches used should be robust and able to sustain high levels of throughput. Because AoE is an Ethernet transmission, multiple NICs and switches can be used for redundancy. Using multiple NICs will also increase capacity. The speed of the interconnect can be any supported Ethernet speed including 10 Mbit, one GbE or 10 GbE. AoE works on Ethernet at the data link layer or layer two, so it is not practical or easy to route over IP, which is a network layer protocol. The availability of relatively inexpensive 10 GBE will be an advantage to protocols like AoE that use basic Ethernet as the basis of their communication. AoE can use any Ethernet card supported by the host operating system. No special cards are available to allow for booting over AoE or processor off-loading. It is possible to boot over AoE, but it is much more difficult to set up than it is in iSCSI. AOE HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE The hardware and software currently available for AoE could best be described as utilitarian and functional. CORAID is the most visible manufacturer of AoE hardware, and most of their hardware is rebranded Supermicro server hardware running Plan 9 OS to support the AoE functionality. CORAID has also introduced an AoE driver for VMware. VMware AoE drivers and host bus adapters allow the VMware server to see AoE block devices as local storage. Hitachi might also have some storage products that support AoE, but they do not seem to be heavily marketing the products that do this at this time. Support for AoE is baked into the Linux kernel. For several distributions, an apt-get or yum install command is all that is necessary to get the tools to manipulate and control AoE. In the Windows world, there are free tools and commercial support available through a GPLv3 WinAoE (http://winaoe. org) driver and a commercial product called StarPort from RocketDivision Software (http:// www.rocketdivision.com/port. html). With the onset of fiber channel over Ethernet (FCoE), one might wonder if protocols like iSCSI and AoE still have a place? FCoE still has unique and expensive requirements, including a host bus adapter that is 10 GbE and uses special lossless Ethernet. FCoE will probably also need a unique switch. In a nutshell, FCoE does not use off-the-shelf commodity components and still has unique requirements. AOE COSTS For an idea of the costs involved in implementing AoE, the following is an overview of an AoE storage solution with CORAID components: The 15-drive chassis called the SR1521 is available for about AoE is a thin protocol layer directly on top of Ethernet. ATA disk commands are put directly into standard Ethernet frames using the AoE protocol. AoE is a block storage, nonrouted protocol; therefore, it does not require IP or TCP protocol layers. This makes network connection to disks simpler. © CORAID