Users Guide

FC Flex IO Modules

This part provides a generic, broad-level description of the operations, capabilities, and conguration commands of the Fiber Channel (FC)

Flex IO module.

FC Flex IO Module mentioned in this guide refers to FCF Port Combo Card.

Topics:

• FC Flex IO Modules

• Understanding and Working of the FC Flex IO Modules

• Data Center Bridging (DCB)

• Fibre Channel over Ethernet for FC Flex IO Modules

• NPIV Proxy Gateway for FC Flex IO Modules

FC Flex IO Modules

This part provides a generic, broad-level description of the operations, capabilities, and conguration commands of the Fiber Channel (FC)

Flex IO module.

Understanding and Working of the FC Flex IO

Modules

This chapter provides a generic, broad-level description of the operations and functionality of the Fiber Channel (FC) Flex IO module, and

contains the following sections:

• FC Flex IO Modules Overview

• FC Flex IO Module Capabilities and Operations

• Guidelines for Working with FC Flex IO Modules

• Processing of Data Trac

• Installing and Conguring the Switch

• Interconnectivity of FC Flex IO Modules with Cisco MDS Switches

FC Flex IO Modules Overview

The Fibre Channel (FC) Flex IO module is supported on FN IOM. The FN IOM switch installed with the FC Flex IO module functions as a

top-of-rack edge switch that supports converged enhanced Ethernet (CEE) trac — Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) for storage,

Interprocess Communication (IPC) for servers, and Ethernet local area network (LAN) (IP cloud) for data — as well as FC links to one or

more storage area network (SAN) fabrics. Although the FN IOM can act as a FIP snooping bridge (FSB) to provide FCoE transit switch

capabilities, the salient and signicant advantage of deploying the FC Flex IO module is to enable more streamlined and cohesive FCoE N-

port identier virtualization (NPIV) proxy gateway functionalities. The NPIV proxy gateway (NPG) provides FCoE-FC bridging behavior.

The FC Flex IO module oers a rich, comprehensive set of FCoE functionalities on the FX2 chassis by splitting the Ethernet and Fibre

Channel (FC) trac at the edge of the chassis. The FC switches that are connected directly to the FC Flex IO module provide Fibre

Channel capabilities because the FC Flex IO module does not support full fabric functionalities. With the separation of Ethernet and FC

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