ATA over Ethernet

ATA over Ethernet (AoE) is a network protocol developed by the Brantley Coile Company, designed for simple, high-performance access of block storage devices over Ethernet networks. It is used to build storage area networks (SANs) with low-cost, standard technologies.

AoE runs on layer 2 Ethernet. AoE does not use layer 3 IPv4 or IPv6; it cannot be accessed over the Internet or other IP networks. In this regard it is more comparable to FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) than iSCSI.

Server
Install the vblade package:

Create a 100GB sparse file which will be the AoE target:

Edit the vblade config file:

Start the vblade service:

Client
Install the aoetools package:

Use aoe-stat to view the aoe target and the above example should be located at /dev/etherd/e0.0