Data Center Fabric Manager Professional User Manual v10.3.X (53-1001355-01, November 2009)

DCFM Professional User Manual 267
53-1001355-01
Chapter
11
Fibre Channel over Ethernet
In this chapter
•FCoE overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
•QoS configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
•LLDP-DCBX configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
•Access Control List configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
•Spanning Tree Protocol configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
•802.1x authentication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
•Virtual FCoE port configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
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.