Data center bridging (DCB) refers to a set of enhancements to Ethernet local area networks for use in data center environments. Specifically, DCB goals are, for selected traffic, to eliminate loss due to queue overflow (sometimes called lossless Ethernet) and to be able to allocate bandwidth on links. Essentially, DCB enables, to some extent, the treatment of different priorities as if they were different pipes. The primary motivation was the sensitivity of Fibre Channel over Ethernet to frame loss. The higher level goal is to use a single set of Ethernet physical devices or adapters for computers to talk to a Storage Area Network, Local Area network and InfiniBand fabric.
Ethernet is the primary network protocol in data centers for computer-to-computer communications. However, Ethernet is designed to be a best-effort network that may experience packet loss when the network or devices are busy. In Internet Protocol networks, transport reliability under the end-to-end principle is the responsibility of the transport protocols, such as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).
One area of evolution for Ethernet is to add extensions to the existing protocol suite to provide reliability without requiring the complexity of TCP. With the move to 10 Gbit/s and faster transmission rates, there is also a desire for finer granularity in control of bandwidth allocation and to ensure it is used more effectively. Beyond the benefits to traditional application traffic, these enhancements make Ethernet a more viable transport for storage and server cluster traffic.
To meet these goals new standards are being (or have been) developed that either extend the existing set of Ethernet protocols or emulate the connectivity offered by Ethernet protocols. They are being (or have been) developed respectively by two separate standards bodies, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Data Center Bridging Task Group of the IEEE 802.1 Working Group and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
Read more about Data Center Bridging: Contents, Terminology, IEEE Task Group, Other Groups
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