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Dell Converged Enhanced Ethernet Administrator’s Guide 1
53-1002116-01
Chapter
1
Introducing FCoE
In this chapter
•FCoE terminology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
•FCoE overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
•Layer 2 Ethernet overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
•FCoE Initialization Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
•FCoE queuing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
FCoE terminology
Table 1 lists and describes the FCoE terminology used in this document.
FCoE overview
Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) enables you to transport FC protocols and frames over
Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) networks. CEE is an enhanced Ethernet that enables the
convergence of various applications in data centers (LAN, SAN, and HPC) onto a single interconnect
technology.
FCoE provides a method of encapsulating the Fibre Channel (FC) traffic over a physical Ethernet
link. FCoE frames use a unique EtherType that enables FCoE traffic and standard Ethernet traffic to
be carried on the same link. FC frames are encapsulated in an Ethernet frame and sent from one
FCoE-aware device across an Ethernet network to a second FCoE-aware device. The FCoE-aware
devices may be FCoE end nodes (ENodes) such as servers, storage arrays, or tape drives on one
end and FCoE Forwarders on the other end. FCoE Forwarders (FCFs) are switches providing FC
fabric services and FCoE-to-FC bridging.
TABLE 1 FCoE terminology
Term Description
FCoE Fibre Channel over Ethernet
CEE Converged Enhanced Ethernet
VN_port FCoE equivalent of an FC N_port
VF_port FCoE equivalent of an FC F_port
ENode An FCoE device that supports FCoE VN_ports
(servers and target devices)
FCoE Forwarder (FCF) An FCoE link end point that provides FC fabric
services