Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCOE) is a newly emerging technology for mapping of Fibre Channel over selected full duplex IEEE 802.3 networks. FCOE replaces the FC0 and FC1 layers of the Fibre Channel stack with Ethernet. The standard is currently in draft in the T11 standards committee.

Microsoft is tracking the progress of the standard through our T11 participation. Although Microsoft does not have a current plan of record to support FCOE, we are working to understand the key benefits that FCOE can offer our enterprise customers. We are also engaging with storage partners who are developing FCOE products and solutions to define requirements for potential support in Windows in the future when partners might be able to gain Logo status for FCOE devices.

Because FCOE defines a new transport, existing Logo categories for Fibre Channel devices in the Windows Logo Program cannot be used to gain Logo status for FCOE hardware devices or for their corresponding drivers.

FCOE devices, including FCOE host bus adapters (HBAs), are not eligible for Logo status under Fibre Channel categories and are not supported by Microsoft at this time. FCOE devices are eligible for signature only, under the unclassified category. Submissions for FCOE products that are inadvertently made under Logo categories defined for Fibre Channel will fail and their corresponding listings will be removed.

The following are recommendations for HBA vendors who use Converged Network Adapters (CNAs).

Use a different driver name for your FCOE miniport drivers so that you can separately achieve Logo status for your existing Fibre Channel HBAs and corresponding miniport drivers through the standard process.

Tell your customers which products or adapter functions are supported by Microsoft or have attained a Microsoft Logo status.

For more information, contact LogoFB@microsoft.com