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Dell Converged Enhanced Ethernet Administrator’s Guide 3
53-1002116-01
Layer 2 Ethernet overview
1
Layer 2 Ethernet overview
The Dell FCoE hardware contain CEE ports that support FCoE forwarding. The CEE ports are also
backwards compatible and support classic Layer 2 Ethernet networks (see Figure 1). In Layer 2
Ethernet operation, a host with a Converged Network Adapter (CNA) can be directly attached to a
CEE port on the Dell FCoE hardware. Another host with a classic 10-Gigabit Ethernet NIC can be
either directly attached to a CEE port, or attached to a classic Layer 2 Ethernet network which is
attached to the Dell FCoE hardware.
FIGURE 1 Multiple switch fabric configuration
Layer 2 forwarding
Layer 2 Ethernet frames are forwarded on the CEE ports. 802.1Q VLAN support is used to tag
incoming frames to specific VLANs, and 802.3ac VLAN tagging support is used to accept VLAN
tagged frames from external devices. The 802.1D Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), Rapid Spanning
Tree Protocol (RSTP), and Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP) are used as the bridging
protocols between Layer 2 switches.
Classic Layer 2
Ethernet switch
FC switch
FC switch
Storage
Host 1 Host 2
Host 3
Dell M8428-k
Switch
CNA or
classic NIC
CNA or
classic NIC
Classic NIC