Concept Guide

Data Center Bridging Exchange Protocol (DCBx)
The data center bridging exchange (DCBx) protocol is disabled by default on any switch on which PFC or ETS are enabled.
DCBx allows a switch to automatically discover DCB-enabled peers and exchange conguration information. PFC and ETS use DCBx to
exchange and negotiate parameters with peer devices. DCBx capabilities include:
• Discovery of DCB capabilities on peer-device connections.
• Determination of possible mismatch in DCB conguration on a peer link.
• Conguration of a peer device over a DCB link.
DCBx requires the link layer discovery protocol (LLDP) to provide the path to exchange DCB parameters with peer devices. Exchanged
parameters are sent in organizationally specic TLVs in LLDP data units. For more information, refer to Link Layer Discovery Protocol
(LLDP). The following LLDP TLVs are supported for DCB parameter exchange:
PFC parameters PFC Conguration TLV and Application Priority Conguration TLV.
ETS parameters ETS Conguration TLV and ETS Recommendation TLV.
Data Center Bridging in a Trac Flow
The following gure shows how DCB handles a trac ow on an interface.
Figure 3. DCB PFC and ETS Trac Handling
Enabling Data Center Bridging
DCB is automatically congured when you congure FCoE or iSCSI optimization.
Data center bridging supports converged enhanced Ethernet (CEE) in a data center network. DCB is disabled by default. It must be
enabled to support CEE.
• Priority-based ow control
Data Center Bridging (DCB)
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