Administrator Guide

bandwidth of up to 64GB. It is possible to connect some of the ports to a dierent FC SAN fabric to provide access to multiple fabric
devices.
In a typical Fibre Channel storage network topology, separate network interface cards (NICs) and host bus adapters (HBAs) on each
server (two each for redundancy purposes) are connected to LAN and SAN networks respectively. These deployments typically
include a ToR SAN switch in addition to a ToR LAN switch. By employing converged network adapters (CNAs) that the FC Flex IO
module supports, CNAs are used to transmit FCoE trac from the server instead of separate NIC and HBA devices. In such a
scenario, you can determine whether the FC or SAN packets and the Ethernet or LAN packets must be split within the chassis or by
using a ToR switch to perform this splitting.
If you want to segregate the LAN and SAN trac within the chassis, you can employ switches such as the Dell M8428-k Converged
10GbE Switch or FC-only switches such as the Dell M5424 switch module. You can also use the S5000 Switch as a ToR switch to
separate the LAN and SAN trac at the ToR. By using the FC Flex IO module, you can optimally and eectively split the LAN and
SAN trac at the edge of the blade chassis itself. You can deploy the FC Flex IO module can be deployed in the enterprise and data
center switching networks to leverage and derive the advantages of a converged Ethernet network.
The FC Flex IO module is not an FCF switch, but it oers FCoE capabilities from the server to the MXL or I/O Aggregator switches,
and native FC capability in the uplink direction to the SAN switches. Although the FC Flex IO module does not support all of the FCF
characteristics, such as full-blown name services or zone parameters, it presents the most exible solution in interoperating with
third-party switches that enable the splitting of LAN and SAN trac. With the MXL 10/40GbE Switch and I/O Aggregator being
well-established systems in the switch domain, you can install the FC Flex IO module to enhance and increase the converged
Ethernet network performance and behavior. With the FC Flex IO module, the MXL 10/40GbE Switch and I/O Aggregator provide
thirty-two 1GbE or 10 GbE server-facing ports and the option to add two FC Flex IO modules that oer up to 8 8Gb Fibre Channel
ports for uplink trac in addition to the xed two 40GbE ports on the MXL 10/40GbE Switch and I/O Aggregator.
NOTE: When an FC Flex IO module is inserted into an I/O Aggregator and the FC ports are in the operationally up state,
you can congure the port speed of these FC ports as 2 Gbps, 4 Gbps, or 8 Gbps. In the chassis management controller
(CMC) GUI, the FC port link speed is always shown as 10 Gbps, regardless of whether the port speed congured is 2
Gbps, 4 Gbps, or 8 Gbps.
You can congure one of the following upstream (fabric-facing) FC ports:
• Two 40GbE and eight 8GB FC ports
• Four 40GbE and four 8GB FC ports
• Two 40GbE, four 10GbE, and four 8GB FC ports
• Two 40GbE, four 10GBASE-T, and four 8GB FC ports
FC Flex IO Module Capabilities and Operations
The FC Flex IO module has the following characteristics:
• You can install one or two FC Flex IO modules on the MXL 10/40GbE Switch or I/O Aggregator. Each module supports four FC
ports.
• Each port can operate in 2Gbps, 4Gbps, or 8Gbps of Fibre Channel speed.
• All ports on an FC Flex IO module can function in the NPIV mode that enables connectivity to FC switches or directors, and also
to multiple SAN topologies.
• It automatically senses the current speed when the port link is up. Valid link speeds are 2 Gbps, 4 Gbps, and 8 Gbps.
• By default, the FC ports are congured to operate in N-port mode to connect to an F port on an FC switch in a fabric. You can
apply only one FCoE map on an FC port. An N-Port is a port on the node of an FC device and is called a node port.
• There should a maximum of 64 server fabric login (FLOGI) requests or fabric discovery (FDISC) requests per server MAC
address before being forwarded by the FC Flex IO module to the FC core switch. Without user conguration, only 32 server login
sessions are permitted for each server MAC address. To increase the total number of sessions to 64, use the max sessions
command.
• A distance of up to 300 meters is supported at 8 Gbps for Fibre Channel trac.
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FC Flex IO Modules