What is Data Center Ethernet, also known as Converged Ethernet?
Data Center Ethernet, or DCE, is the acronym that Cisco has been using. It refers to an enhanced, optimized Ethernet that has Fibre Channel grafted on top of it. Then there’s Converged Enhanced Ethernet or Converged Enterprise Ethernet — the term being used by IBM, Brocade — essentially everybody else except Cisco. That name, Converged Enhanced Ethernet, conveys that it’s an enhanced Ethernet that is more than just your standard 10/100 or 1 Gbit or 10 Gigabit Ethernet. The reason that it’s enhanced is that it does have the lower latency capabilities, the quality-of-service capabilities, the predictability and some other optimization capabilities to support premium-type traffic. Premium also means it’s going to have a higher price. What will happen over time is that the two camps will come together and settle on one standardized approach.
