The Ethernet Alliance, a global consortium dedicated to Ethernet advancement, revealed the successful completion of its most recent Data Center Bridging (DCB) interoperability "plugfest," held at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory. The event attracted a broad range of cross-discipline, Ethernet Alliance member companies.

Data Center Bridging "is enabling the convergence of traditional Ethernet and storage traffic on one, lossless Ethernet cable," according to Joy Jiang of JDSU, chair of the DCB Plugfest. "DCB is enabling the convergence of traditional Ethernet and storage traffic on one, lossless Ethernet cable. This interoperability testing confirms that the standards are complete and we have products that create an ecosystem of solutions that are ready to be deployed."

This was the latest in a series of Ethernet Alliance-sponsored plugfests was dedicated to the testing of DCB technologies per IEEE 802.1Qxx standards. A number of industry-firsts were achieved during the event, including construction and demonstration of an end-to-end DCB network via the IEEE 802.1Q standard DCBX protocol. The network was backward compatible with the pre-IEEE DCBX protocol, and the first publicly run, lossless Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) over DCB traffic via 10GBase-T interconnection.

For more information about the Ethernet Alliance, visit www.ethernetalliance.org.