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Cisco Responds to Brocade on Standards

Cisco (CSCO) has responded to comments from Brocade (BRCD) that Data Center Ethernet is "proprietary."

In a roundup yesterday we linked a post from Greg Ferro that waded into the developing battle between Cisco (CSCO) and Brocade (BRCD) over the particulars of emerging standards for lossless Ethernet, which would allow storage systems to be incorporated into a unified networking fabric for the data center. The Register quoted Brocade execs describing Data Center Ethernet as a "Cisco-trademarked term" and "a proprietary implementation." Cisco's Deepak Munjal has responded on the Cisco Data Center blog:

The fact is that FCoE and Data Center Ethernet enjoy support from a variety of vendors and are being adopted by many standards bodies including IEEE and INCITS T11. Many vendors including Intel, Emulex, and QLogic have already announced FCoE and Data Center Ethernet products and many more have committed to doing so.

Standards around storage networking and a unified fabric are a heavy spin zone at the moment. We'll do our best to share news and discussion that strikes us as notable.