Data Center Fabric Manager Enterprise User Manual v10.3.X (53-1001357-01, November 2009)

DCFM Enterprise User Manual 397

53-1001357-01

Chapter

Fibre Channel over Ethernet

In this chapter

•FCoE overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

•QoS configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

•LLDP-DCBX configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

•Access Control List configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

•Spanning Tree Protocol configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

•802.1x authentication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438

•Virtual FCoE port configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

FCoE overview

Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) leverages Ethernet enhancements, called Converged

Enhanced Ethernet (CEE), to transport encapsulated Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet. Ethernet

is the physical layer over which the encapsulated FC frames are transported.

One of the barriers to using Ethernet as the basis for a converged network has been the limited

bandwidth that Ethernet has historically provided. However, with 10 Gbps Ethernet, the available

bandwidth now offers the potential to consolidate all the traffic types over the same link.

Unlike Fibre Channel, Ethernet is not a peer-to-peer protocol. The mechanism used to discover new

ports, MAC address assignments and FC logins and logouts is called the FCoE Initialization Protocol

(FIP).

DCB exchange protocol

DCB Exchange (DCBX) protocol allows enhanced Ethernet devices to convey and configure their

CEE capabilities and ensures a consistent configuration across the network. DCBX protocol is used

between data center bridging (DCB) devices, such as a converged network adapter (CNA) and a

FCoE switch, to exchange configuration with directly-connected peers.

NOTE

When DCBX protocol is used, any other LLDP implementation must be disabled on the host systems.