Exclusives

Cisco is Wishfully Wishing for FCoE Sales?

Omar Sultan from Cisco is wishing that FCoE would actually get some sales.

You see, Cisco bought Nuova Systems to rush FCoE to market as the Nexus 5000 switch. But someone forgot to complete the standards work, and now this is causing problems. Customers are obviously concerned that FCoE has NOT been standardised.

Both the ANSI and IEEE are moving slowly on completing the standards work for FCoE and its supporting CEE etherent technologies. Cisco must have hoped that they would have been finished by now and might be getting nervous that things are moving slowly.

I think Omar is wishing that people would stop worrying about standards and just put their money down. Nervous are we ?

There is a lovely quote here on Cisco’s Data Centre blog

“Its also important to note, as Silvano Gai, who literally wrote the book on FCoE, pointed out, standards are organic things. If they are going to be useful and stay relevant, standards need to remain organic, so waiting for a standard to be “done” is kinda pointless.”

Huh, what? Standards don’t matter ?

Is that a used car you are trying to sell?

I’m thinking that if Omar (chief FCoE standard bearer for the entire world) tell us that standards don’t matter then sales are slow. If sales are slow, then FCoE might not cross the adoption gap…..

PS. I read the book. Review: Cisco’s documentation is better.

About the author

Greg Ferro

Greg Ferro is the co-host of Packet Pushers. After surviving 25 years in Enterprise IT with only minor damage, he uses his networking expertise for good in the service of others by deep diving on technology and industry. His unique role as an inspirational cynicist brings a sense of fun, practicality and sheer talent to world of data networking and its place in a world of clouds.

He blogs regularly at http://etherealmind.com and the podcasts are at http://packetpushers.net.

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