"Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future" -Jedi Master Yoda.
Yoda image credit: www.yodaquotes.net

"Planning for the future can be challenging . To effectively prepare for the unknown it is best to design into any plans, the added flexibility. This is especially true with IT. " wrote Amit Jain  

In a very clear article , published for the NetApp Community , Amit explores solutions  to wire your data center storage network once with a flexible network technology that can be re-configured through software to run any storage protocol

Wether you are ready to make the transition from FC to Ethernet or not, Amit suggests elegant architectures which provide maximum flexibility.
He explains on one hand the primary reasons to adopt Multi-hop and end-to-end FCoE, on the other hand the advantages of Cisco 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks with Unified Port (UP), and the new functionalities provided by NetApp Unified Target Adapter (UTA 2), which prepare you for a future transition if you decide to wait .

"Ethernet-based data center infrastructures offer a degree of future-proofing because the physical transport can support multiple protocols and data traffic types, including block and file storage traffic"  insists  Amit.

To stay ahead of the game, I encourage you to read here the full article, and to check Amit's series of blogs on customer adoption of end-to-end Ethernet-based Multi-protocol storage networks.

Follow Amit Jain on Twitter  @amitjain_Leo