Gartner on FCoE: The rebuttal

March 25, 2010 – Earlier this week I blogged about a Gartner press release and report that purported to point out the flaws behind the pro-FCoE arguments. Essentially, Gartner analyst Joe Skorupa argues that Fibre Channel over Ethernet may not, in fact, reduce the number of switches and ports, nor the power and cooling requirements, in a converged network. He also argues that a converged network could be more difficult to manage than two separate networks (Ethernet and Fibre Channel).

For the full press release and a link to the ($195) report, see my previous post, “Gartner exposes FCoE ‘myths.’”

Predictably, those views set off some controversial fireworks, in part because (for better or for worse) Gartner holds a lot of sway in the IT world, which is where the FCoE battle will eventually be fought. For the best rebuttal to Gartner’s arguments that I’ve seen so far, see J Michel Metz’s “Gartner on FCoE: Whoa There, Sparky.”

I’m just glad to see the FCoE discussions moving away from arguments about which vendor is best-positioned to take advantage of FCoE toward more discussions about the technological merits and hurdles involved with the technology.