Modeling and simulation of data center ethernet

Abstract

Data centers use Ethernet for TCP/IP networks and Fiber Channel for storage area networks (SANs). Data Center Ethernet (DCE) refers to enhancements of Data Center by bridging local area network (LAN) and Storage Area Network (SAN) connectivity over an Ethernet Network. With DCE, Fiber Channel becomes another network protocol running on Ethernet, alongside traditional Internet Protocol (IP) traffic. It introduces new requirements for modeling and simulation of Fiber channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and this paper presents a modeling and analysis of DCE. We develop a simulation tools (DCESim) for designing, modeling, simulating and evaluating of DCE by using OMNeT++, object-oriented modular discrete event network simulator. The simulation result has been validated with the actual I/O performance of a network experiment with FCoE software stack. We use the IO meter workload patterns to measure the computational effort of the simulator and illustrate that this measure is both adequate and accurate. We evaluate the relative performance with two different scenarios and experimental measurements confirm these simulation results.