Demartek Publishes Evaluation of NetApp Ethernet Storage

Demartek LLC announces its evaluation of NetApp Ethernet Storage.

Ethernet storage is advancing towards a converged storage network, supporting the traditional NFS, CIFS and iSCSI storage protocols and adding Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), all running over a single connection between the host server and the target storage.

NetApp introduced general availability in August 2009 of native FCoE and Data Center Bridging (DCB) connectivity with its FAS and V-Series storage systems. Via the same 10GbE unified target adapter (UTA), NetApp also began publicly demonstrating support of FCoE, iSCSI, NFS and CIFS over a single port, with general availability planned in 2010. Demartek evaluated this storage solution for its flexibility and performance in satisfying all these storage protocols.

This report primarily focuses on the FCoE implementation of the NetApp storage solution, with some look at iSCSI and other Ethernet storage protocols in a 10-Gigabit Enhanced Ethernet environment.

"We are pleased that Demartek performed this independent evaluation of our Unified Storage Solution," said Mike McNamara, senior manager, Product Marketing for NetApp. "Demartek’s lab infrastructure and hands-on expertise with FCoE, iSCSI and other storage protocols was a valuable asset in helping us validate the flexibility and performance of our Unified Storage Solution."

"We are delighted to test the first end-to-end FCoE storage solution that also supports iSCSI and other storage protocols in our lab and at the NetApp lab," said Dennis Martin, Demartek President. "The NetApp storage system is an excellent system for handling combined Fibre Channel, FCoE, iSCSI, NFS and CIFS protocols in a single storage solution."

To read the complete evaluation of the NetApp Unified Ethernet Storage solution