Administrator Guide

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About Data Center Bridging
Data center bridging (DCB) is a set of extensions to IEEE Ethernet standards, intended to improve the performance, controllability,
and reliability of the Ethernet fabric. DCB can make Ethernet the unied fabric for dierent types and priorities of data trac in the
data center.
The DCB enhancements are aimed to:
• Improve Ethernet performance
• Reduce or eliminate lost packets for lossless trac classes
• Provide the ability to dene classes of trac, which can have diering bandwidth, priority, and frame loss characteristics,
enabling:
– Pause per class — Ability to independently pause based on user priorities or classes of service
– Bandwidth allocation or trac class prioritization — Ability to provide dierent service characteristics to trac classes
– End-to-end congestion management — Ability to notify sender of rate limiting transmission to avoid frame loss
• Enable deterministic performance during congestion
• Provide a unied fabric for converged SAN and LAN for improved scalability and performance.
NOTE:
• All group members must be running PS Series rmware version 5.1 or later to use DCB.
• All group members must be 10Gb-based arrays. Mixed groups of 1Gb and 10Gb arrays are not supported.
Congure Data Center Bridging
Ensure that you have properly congured your environment (switch fabric) for all DCB-enabled devices, according to the
requirements described in the following section.
Requirements
For DCB to function correctly, your conguration must meet the following requirements:
• All group members must be 10Gb arrays.
• All group members must be running PS Series rmware version 5.1 or later.
• Initiator and target devices, as well as all the network switches between the initiators and the targets, must support DCB. All
devices must be congured for DCB from end to end, including:
– From the host’s CNA card (edge-port) to the network switch
– From the network switch to the array (edge-port)
– Everything else in between (if using multiple switches)
• All of the network devices, initiators, targets (if non-EQL targets), and switches in the network conguration, such as PFC
(Priority Flow Control), iSCSI TLV (Type-Length-Value), and ETS (Enhanced Transmission Selection), must be supported.
• Even if all the attached network switches fully support DCB, you must congure DCB properly on the network switches for the
conguration to work correctly.
Additional Information
Dell strongly recommends that you read the following white papers for more information about conguring DCB:
• The Data Center Bridging: Standards, Behavioral Requirements, and Conguration Guidelines with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SANs
white paper contains information about the DCB requirements and conguration guidelines. You can download the paper from:
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/storage/w/wiki/4396.data-center-bridging-standards-behavioral-requirements-and-
conguration-guidelines-by-sis.aspx
• The EqualLogic DCB Conguration Best Practices white paper contains the DCB requirements for EqualLogic, to ensure that
DCB is properly enabled or disabled across all devices, and to assist with identifying and resolving basic DCB conguration issues
About Volumes
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