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BP1037 Transitioning to DCB with EqualLogic PS series Storage Solutions iii
Table of Contents
1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 5
2 Data Center Bridging overview ....................................................................................................................... 6
2.1 Why DCB was created .............................................................................................................................. 6
2.2 Benefits of DCB ......................................................................................................................................... 6
2.3 DCB terminology ........................................................................................................................................ 7
2.3.1 Priority-based Flow Control (PFC) ................................................................................................. 8
2.3.2 Enhanced Transmission Selection (ETS) ....................................................................................... 9
2.3.3 Congestion Notification (CN) ........................................................................................................ 10
2.3.4 Data Center Bridging Capability Exchange (DCBx) .................................................................... 11
3 iSCSI in a converged data center ..................................................................................................................12
3.1 Challenge for iSCSI in a shared network ..............................................................................................12
3.2 iSCSI TLV’s role in Enterprise iSCSI .......................................................................................................12
3.3 Enterprise iSCSI solution example .........................................................................................................12
3.4 EqualLogic DCB support .........................................................................................................................13
4 Transitioning to DCB ...................................................................................................................................... 14
4.1 Classes of DCB switches ........................................................................................................................ 14
4.1.1 Core DCB switch ............................................................................................................................. 14
4.1.2 Bridge DCB switch .......................................................................................................................... 14
4.1.3 Traditional non-DCB switch ........................................................................................................... 15
4.2 Data center of today ................................................................................................................................ 15
4.3 Data center in transition ......................................................................................................................... 16
4.3.1 Deployment considerations for DCB network ........................................................................... 16
4.3.2 Deployment example scenarios .................................................................................................... 17
4.4 Future network design based on end-to-end DCB and 10GbE ..................................................... 19
5 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................... 20
6 Glossary ..............................................................................................................................................................21
7 References ........................................................................................................................................................ 22