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Data Center Bridging Commands 873
the DCBX conforms to all aspects of the legacy standards to the degree
necessary to support interoperability with a wide variety of FCoE capable
switches.
The main objective of DCBX is to perform the following operations:
• Discovery of DCB capability in a peer
DCBX is used to learn about the capabilities of the peer device. It is a
means to determine if the peer device supports a particular feature such as
PFC.
• DCB feature misconfiguration detection
DCBX can be used to detect misconfiguration of a feature between the
peers on a link. Misconfiguration detection is feature-specific because
some features may allow asymmetric configuration.
• Peer configuration of DCB features
DCBX can be used by a device to perform configuration of DCB features
in its peer device if the peer device is willing to accept configuration.
Interoperability with IEEE DCBX
The PowerConnect switch automatically detects if a peer is operating with
either of the two CEE DCBX versions or the IEEE standard DCBX version.
This is the default mode. DCBX can also be configured to manually select
one of the legacy versions or IEEE standard mode. In auto-detect mode, the
switch starts operating in IEEE DCBX mode on a port and if it detects a
legacy DCBX device based on the OUI of the organization TLV, then the
switch changes its DCBX mode on that port to support the version detected.
There is no time out mechanism to move back to IEEE mode. Once the
DCBX peer times out, multiple peers are detected, the link is reset (link
down/up) or as commanded by the operator, DCBX resets its operational
mode to IEEE.
The interaction between DCBX component and other components remains
the same irrespective of the operational mode it is executing. For instance,
DCBX component interacts with PFC to get needed information to pack the
TLVs to be sent out on the interface. Based on the operational control mode
of the port, DCBX packs it in the proper frame format.
2CSPC4.X8100-SWUM102.book Page 873 Friday, March 15, 2013 8:56 AM