Evolving business requirements underscore the need for high-density, high-speed, and low-latency consolidated networks that enable data center scalability and improve manageability while controlling IT costs.

Data centers typically run multiple separate networks, including an Ethernet network for client-to-server and server-to-server communications and a Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN). Use of parallel infrastructures increases capital costs, makes data center management more difficult, and diminishes business flexibility.

This whitepaper discusses the need for unified I/O and describes the phases of unified I/O along with FCoE deployment and the benefits of each phase.