FCoE Cookbook for HP Virtual Connect Version 4.20 Firmware Enhancements May 2014

 To increase the FCoE traffic identification and to better control the span of this traffic over the Ethernet network, it is

recommended to use different FCoE VLANs and VSANs numbers between the two fabrics.

 FCoE VLANs should be dedicated to FCoE traffic (i.e. it should not carry IP traffic).

 FCoE VLAN cannot be configured as a native VLAN (the VLAN that carries untagged traffic on trunk ports, by default

VLAN 1).

 Interfaces connecting to VC must be configured as trunk ports and STP edge ports.

 For each Blade server, one vfc interface with MAC Binding must be defined because Virtual Connect is running in FIP

snooping mode.

 NPIV support is required in FC switches that connect to the Nexus NP Ports.

 SAN Port Channel and VSAN trunking features requires a correct configuration of the upstream MDS switch. Ensure F-

port trunking, F-port port channeling, and NPIV are enabled.

 Since the Nexus is running in NPV mode, all zoning needs to be performed from the Cisco MDS fabric.

Virtual Connect configuration

Before you configure the upstream switches, Virtual Connect requires the creation of an Active/Active configuration of

two converged Shared Uplink Sets (SUS). Refer to the Virtual Connect configuration section.

If you need to improve the Ethernet traffic service level control, refer to the Quality of Service in the Virtual Connect

Domain section.

Nexus configuration

Current NX-OS limitations

There is currently an NX-OS limitation with FCoE Port Channels on Cisco Nexus 5000 and 5500 series. When a Port

Channel is carrying FCoE traffic, all interfaces of this port channel must belong to the same Nexus Unified Port Controller

(UPC) ASIC. At this time, it is not supported to configure an FCoE port channel across different Unified Port Controllers.

For more information, see Appendix A.

Note: These limitations will be removed in a future NX software release.

Details about the configuration:

 NPV mode is used.

 Interfaces eth1/5 and eth1/6 are connected to the VC modules thought FCoE using a port channel po200.

 Interfaces eth1/17 are connected to the datacenter LAN.

 Interfaces fc2/1 and fc2/2 are directly connected to Cisco MDS switches through a SAN Port Channel using NPIV

(TNP_Ports).

 SAN port channels spo100 are using VSAN Trunking to pass FCoE VSANs 20x and 30x.

 VLAN IDs 200, 300, 201 and 301 are used for the FCoE networks.

 VLAN 200 maps to VSAN 200, VLAN 300 to VSAN 300, VLAN 201 to VSAN 201 and VLAN 301 to VSAN 301

 VLAN IDs 1, 10 and 20 are the standard Ethernet networks (non-FCoE networks).

 The virtual Fibre Channel interfaces vfc 2005 bind to the MAC addresses of the first Blade server.

 The virtual Fibre Channel interfaces vfc 2006 bind to the MAC addresses of the second Blade server.

 The EVA is connected to VSAN 30x and the 3PAR is connected to VSANs 20x.