I know I'm shocked.... 
Seriously though, FCOE and the new datacenter network (both from cisco and brocade) basically call for a plant forklift replacement. For those of us with substantial installations, this is not a "slight" cost upgrade...
Starting new, yeah, it's feasible. But it's also bleeding edge, so it will take a while before it gets grip and starts gaining momentum. Personally, in 6-10 years, I imagine it will be mainstream. But it's VERY expensive tech right now. Sure, I'm going to throw out the million dollars just in FC infrastructure I own.....Or am I? Would I be willing to try it? Yep. Just bring down the chassis into a smaller form factor so I can afford to test it. The last 9000 series switch I bought cost me about 12k vs. the 50k of the competing switch just two years earlier, and offers a lot more functionality. FC is cheap to implement these days. I don't see FCOE biting into that anytime soon. And that's not even taking into consideration the worry that a lot of us have with lowering our security by moving it to copper based connectivity from glass....Or the risk of running all of our eggs through one basket. Pass for now.
Rob, you just got branded as failing the "don't be evil" test. Shame on you Cisco. As soon as I read your post I thought, he works for Cisco. I jumped in to ask and I was beaten to it. I do give you credit for being brave enough to state it.
As someone who is delving into this deeply (I have the kit in my lab) I am not going to answer your question, even if you had the best of intentions. There are plenty of us here who will be discussing this in depth, but this is a cummunity forum and we all try to leave our organisations and agenda at the door if we can (or be better at hiding it 
)
If you had of said. "Hey guys, I work for Cisco and I am trying to find out these specific things and here is why " or if you had a post history above 13, you may have got some traction.
Sorry if I sound harsh, its been a 19 hour day.
In summary. Great question. Answer, hang around here for a few months and read the forums and I think you will get lots of insight into what people thing.
Considering awarding points if this is of use
Rodos, don't be so bad.... Xmas is coming...
I don't think there is nothing wrong in a vendor asking that. It might turn into an interesting discussion for the whole community which might have been looking into this and they have now an opportunity to express their concerns (and possibly the vendor providing a rational why that shouldn't be a concern). Do you agree?
I tend to see these things as an opportunity rather than an offense. It might also give you a chance to challenge the vendor. Let me start first
As far as the converged network, Nexus 5000 hw switches / Nexus 1000 sw switches ..... is the Cisco x86 blade the new frontier to provide an integrated end-to-end solution for virtual environments?
http://www.virtualization.info/2008/12/cisco-to-enter-x86-server-market-with.html
Massimo.
Rob, I will take you at your word. For an engineer you write like a salesman, but I have probably been accused of that myself at times Obviously I am turning into a grumpy old man for which I apologize . For what its worth I am a big Cisco fan and have been flogging it for years. Some of my best friends run IOS.
So you are keen to discuss and answer questions. Excellent, that is what we like around here. Let me clear the slate and let the discussion begin.
I would be keen to see some thoughts around Texiwill (Eds) question on security. He gets this security stuff and I only know enough on it to get myself into deep water but not out of it. I would not even know what questions to ask.
For the CNAs, are they all the same or are there differences across manufacturers? What considerations should people look at when choosing product? Do all present a single HBA and a single 10G network interface or can you get one that presents multiple? What do you think is coming down the track, do we need to or how do we future proof?
Typically one ends up with lots of ports in a server where physical separation of networks is required (multiple vSwitches) rather than using VLANs (one vSwitch and multiple port groups). Is this something that CNAs can help with?
How do we compare and contrast a bunch of rack servers with CNAs connecting into a Nexus which then uplinks to the DC fabric for ethernet and fibre, to a blade chassis with internal interconnects which then has a few uplinks to the DC fabric for ethernet and fibre. Whats the pros and cons between the two? If someone has comitted to the blade path what does this mean for the converged network space? If I am interested in moving into converged networks how does this effect my decision on server platforms? What do the blade vendors have on the horizon here.
Would be keen to hear your thoughts and insights on these things, as well as the thoughts of others. These are just some of the topics I am pondering in this space. Am I on the right track?
Rodos
I personally think it boils down to how much further we can push the technology in terms of security and segregation.
I have a customer running 3850M2 ESX hosts with as many as 22 NICs (5 x quad-ports + 2 on-board) and a couple of FC HBAs. Obviously this is not done for perf reasons but rather for security purposes. If somehow this new technology is going to be secure enough to collapse all those network segments into a single cable (i.e. 2 for redundancy) and explode the complexity of these many Ethernet segments + SAN somewhere else on the backbone of the customer..... they would L-O-V-E this..... Obviously this needs to be more secure than VLANs as the reason for which they have 22 NICs is because they don't trust VLANs (I know Ed I know.... VLANs are not meant to provide security boundaries.... ).
In addition to that, cable consolidation is one way to look at this and I agree that when it comes to blade one can pretty much get the same result (although 22 NICs would be challenging ). However I tend to see this also as "cable flexibility" that is... how long does it take to add/remove a new Ethernet zone to a physical setup (be it blades or rack form factor)? You have to go through each of your hosts and switches and add/remove ports. With this you can do everything "virtually". It's similar to a ESX host running 10 Virtual Servers Vs running 10 physical low-end commodity boxes: there is a value in consolidating those 10 servers .... but there is also value in creating the 11th in 3 mouse clicks and a few seconds.
I think that in order for this to be a compelling technology CEE/FCoE needs to be able to address the security concerns associated to different network segments. If it's not able to achieve this than my customers would probably have to run with 20 1Gbit ethernet + 2 x 10Gbit CEE cards (for FC and for one of the many Ethernet segments he can't afford to mix with the others). Not compelling at all.... actually ridiculous.
My 2 cents.
Massimo.