AoE storage protocol over MPLS network

Abstract

ATA over Ethernet (AoE) protocol is an interesting alternative to iSCSI and Fibre Channel. AoE is a light, layer 2 protocol integrated with Ethernet frames, which makes it ideal for work inside LAN segments. Unfortunately, this advantage is also its limitation when access to the AoE storage is required to be over the internetwork. In this paper we show how MPLS can make AoE routable and thereby also independent of Ethernet itself.