Concept 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.
Topics:
• FC Flex IO Modules
• Understanding and Working of the FC Flex IO Modules
• Fibre Channel over Ethernet 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 I/O Aggregator (IOA). The IOA 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 IOA 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 M1000e 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
packets performed at the edge of the chassis itself, you can use the IOA that contains an FC Flex IO module to connect to a SAN
environment without the need for a separate ToR switch to operate as NPIV proxy gateways. The IOA can function in NPIV proxy gateway
mode when an FC Flex IO module is present or in the FIP snooping bridge (FSB) mode when all the ports are Ethernet ports.
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