Administrator Guide
• Congure the NPIV-related commands on MXL or I/O Aggregator.
After you perform the preceding procedure, the following operations take place:
• A physical link is established between the FC Flex I/O module and the Cisco MDS switch.
• The FC Flex I/O module sends a proxy FLOGI request to the upstream F_Port of the FC switch or the MDS switch. The F_port
accepts the proxy FLOGI request for the FC Flex IO virtual N_Port. The converged network adapters (CNAs) are brought online
and the FIP application is run.
• Discovery of the VLAN and FCF MAC addresses is completed.
• The CNA sends a FIP fabric login (FLOGI) request to the FC Flex IO module, which converts FLOGI to FDISC messages or
processes any internally generated FC frames and sends these messages to the SAN environment.
• When the FC fabric discovery (FDISC) accept message is received from the SAN side, the FC Flex IO module converts the
FDISC message again into an FLOGI accept message and transmits it to the CNA.
• Internal tables of the switch are then programmed to enable the gateway device to forward FCoE trac directly back and forth
between the devices.
• The FC Flex IO module sends an FC or FCoE registered state change notication (RSCN) message to the upstream or
downstream devices whenever an error occurs in the appropriate direction.
• An F_Port is a port on an FC switch that connects to an N_Port of an FC device and is called a fabric port.
By default, the NPIV functionality is disabled on the Cisco MDS switch; enable this capability before you connect the FC port of the
MXL or I/O Aggregator to these upstream switches.
Data Center Bridging, Fibre Channel over Ethernet, and NPIV Proxy Gateway features are supported on the FC Flex IO modules. For
detailed information about these applications and their working, see the corresponding chapters for these applications in this manual.
The following gures illustrate two deployment scenarios of conguring FC Flex IO modules:
Figure 34. Case 1: Deployment Scenario of Conguring FC Flex IO Modules
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FC Flex IO Modules