Brocade Network Advisor IP User Manual v12.3.0 - Manual (Page 649)

Brocade Network Advisor IP User Manual 597
53-1003153-01
Chapter
17
Fibre Channel over Ethernet
In this chapter
• FCoE overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
• Enhanced Ethernet features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598
• FCoE protocols supported. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
• FCoE licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 600
• Saving running configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 600
• DCB configuration management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602
• Switch policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603
• DCB configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 604
• QoS configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617
• FCoE provisioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625
• VLAN classifier configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
• LLDP-DCBX configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631
• 802.1x authentication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634
• Switch, port, and LAG deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637
• Network OS switches in VCS mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641
• DCB performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653
• FCoE login groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656
• Virtual FCoE port configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661
FCoE overview
Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) leverages Ethernet enhancements, called Data Center Bridging
(DCB), to transport encapsulated Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet. Ethernet is the physical layer
over which the encapsulated Fibre Channel 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 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 Fibre Channel logins and logouts is called the FCoE
Initialization Protocol (FIP).