ATA over Ethernet (AoE) delivers a simple, high performance, low cost
alternative to iSCSI and FibreChannel for networked block storage by
eliminating the processing overhead of TCP/IP.

+ ATA-over-Ethernet (AoE) is a thin protocol layer directly on top of
Ethernet.

+ ATA disk commands (ie.  read disk sector x, write disk sector y) are
put directly into standard Ethernet frames using the AoE protocol.
AoE is a block storage protocol.

+ AoE is a non-routed protocol, therefore does not require IP or TCP
protocol layers.  This eliminates unnecessary processing and makes
network connection to disks simple. It also limits AoE to the local
network segment.

The AoE protocol specification can be found at:

	http://www.coraid.com/documents/AoEr8.txt