Maintaining a fabric name across a distributed switch
AssigneeGlobalfoundries Inc.
InventorsJoachim Fenkes, Roger G. Hathorn, Sriharsha Jayanarayana, Henry J. May, Daniel Sentler, Sudheer R. Yelanduru
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Abstract
Techniques are provided for distributing a fabric name to switching elements of a distributed switch configured to forward Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) frames. A distributed switch membership distributed (DMFD) message is transmitted that includes names of all switching elements in the distributed switch, and further includes a fabric descriptor that contains the fabric name.
Claims6
A method for managing a distributed Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) fabric in which Fibre Channel frames are encapsulated in Ethernet frames, the method comprising:
- transmitting from a first FCoE data-plane forwarder (FDF) to a controlling FCoE forwarder (cFCF) of the distributed Fibre Channel fabric a discovery advertisement message containing a fabric name field comprising a zero value;
- receiving a unicast discovery solicitation message from the cFCF;
- instantiating a switch link between the cFCF of the distributed Fibre Channel fabric and the first FDF responsive to accepting a request to establish the switch link comprising VA_port to VA_port link, wherein the distributed Fibre Channel fabric further comprises a set of FDFs, and wherein a VA_port is an instance of an FC-2V sublevel of the Fibre Channel;
- receiving, from the cFCF, a distributed switch membership distribution (DFMD) message, wherein the DFMD message contains a fabric name identifying the distributed Fibre Channel fabric;
- and
- modifying the first FDF to join the distributed Fibre Channel fabric based on the fabric name contained in the DFMD message.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.