Addendum

• PFC supports buffering to receive data that continues to arrive on an interface while the remote
system reacts to the PFC operation.
• PFC uses DCB MIB IEEE 802.1azd2.5 and PFC MIB IEEE 802.1bb-d2.2.
• PFC is supported on specified 802.1p priority traffic (dot1p 0 to 7) and is configured per interface.
However, only two lossless queues are supported on an interface: one for Fibre Channel over
Ethernet (FCoE) converged traffic and one for Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI)
storage traffic. Configure the same lossless queues on all ports.
• A dynamic threshold handles intermittent traffic bursts and varies based on the number of PFC
priorities contending for buffers, while a static threshold places an upper limit on the transmit time of
a queue after receiving a message to pause a specified priority. PFC traffic is paused only after
surpassing both static and dynamic thresholds for the priority specified for the port.
• By default, PFC is enabled when you enable DCB. If you have not loaded FCoE_DCB_Config and
iSCSI_DCB_Config, DCB is disabled. When you enable DCB globally, you cannot simultaneously
enable link-level flow control.
• Buffer space is allocated and de-allocated only when you configure a PFC priority on the port.
Enhanced Transmission Selection
Enhanced transmission selection (ETS) supports optimized bandwidth allocation between traffic types in
multiprotocol (Ethernet, FCoE, SCSI) links.
ETS allows you to divide traffic according to its 802.1p priority into different priority groups (traffic
classes) and configure bandwidth allocation and queue scheduling for each group to ensure that each
traffic type is correctly prioritized and receives its required bandwidth. For example, you can prioritize
low-latency storage or server cluster traffic in a traffic class to receive more bandwidth and restrict best-
effort LAN traffic assigned to a different traffic class.
Although you can configure strict-priority queue scheduling for a priority group, ETS introduces flexibility
that allows the bandwidth allocated to each priority group to be dynamically managed according to the
amount of LAN, storage, and server traffic in a flow. Unused bandwidth is dynamically allocated to
prioritized priority groups. Traffic is queued according to its 802.1p priority assignment, while flexible
bandwidth allocation and the configured queue-scheduling for a priority group is supported.
The following figure shows how ETS allows you to allocate bandwidth when different traffic types are
classed according to 802.1p priority and mapped to priority groups.
Figure 9. Enhanced Transmission Selection
The following table lists the traffic groupings ETS uses to select multiprotocol traffic for transmission.
Data Center Bridging (DCB)
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