Command Line Interface Guide

Data Center Bridging Commands 841
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Data Center Bridging Commands
NOTE: Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) commands are only supported on the
PCM8024-k switch. CLI commands and Dell OpenManage Switch Administrator
pages are not available for other switch models.
Data Center Bridging Exchange Protocol
The Data Center Bridging Exchange Protocol (DCBX) is used by DCB
devices to exchange configuration information with directly connected peers.
The protocol is also used to detect misconfiguration of the peer DCB devices
and, optionally, for configuration of peer DCB devices.
DCBX is expected to be deployed in support of lossless operation for FCoE or
iSCSI traffic. In these scenarios, all network elements are DCBX-enabled
(DCBX is enabled end-to-end).
The DCBX protocol implementation conforms to the IEEE 802.1Qaz
specification with some exceptions. To be interoperable with legacy industry
implementations of DCBX protocol, a hybrid model is used to support both
the IEEE version of DCBX and legacy DCBX versions. The hybrid version of
the DCBX conforms to all aspects of the legacy standards to the degree
necessary to support interoperability with a wide variety of FCoE capable
switches.
The main objective of DCBX is to perform the following operations:
• Discovery of DCB capability in a peer
DCBX is used to learn about the capabilities of the peer device. It is a
means to determine if the peer device supports a particular feature such as
PFC.
• DCB feature misconfiguration detection
DCBX can be used to detect misconfiguration of a feature between the
peers on a link. Misconfiguration detection is feature-specific because
some features may allow asymmetric configuration.
• Peer configuration of DCB features
2CSPC4.XModular-SWUM201.book Page 841 Monday, October 3, 2011 2:21 PM