DCB and FCoE

OK my learned posters, I have a question. I am attempting to understand the difference and relationship between datacenter bridging [DCB] and FCoE. I understand that FCoE required both specialized switches (like my VDX 6730) and specialized network adapters, I have a Brocade CNA and a 10GB Intel that supports FCoE.

My Brocade switch has both FC and 10GB ports, my VERY rough interpretation is that the FC network goes into the switch on the FC ports, ethernet on the ethernet side, and I can magically access FC storage on a server with my CNA plugged into one of the ethernet ports.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01681871/c01681871.pdf
Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) - FCoE Encapsulation, FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP) - Brocade

What am I missing?

*EDIT*

I realized that I can convert my ports to "FCOE" specific ports. Lets assume that my storage system does not support FCOE. I should still be able to hook up my legacy FC network to the FCOE network somehow.

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Comments

astorrs

Integration with existing FC networks is the point of FCoE - so yes you can interconnect them. As for "magically" accessing the storage - unfortunately there's a ton of config to do first - after all this is FCP.

Create ISL ports between your VDX switches and your FC directors and extend the fabrics, then connect the CNAs in your server to the VDX switch and perform the usual zoning, etc. and your server should be able to see the applicable storage.

The CNA should show up as seperate Ethernet and Fibre-channel adapters once you load the O/S drivers on your server so it's pretty seamless from the point of the server.

kalebksp

astorrs is correct. To answer your question about DCB; DCB is essentially a set of standards which allow Ethernet to operate as lossless for a subset of traffic. Standard Ethernet is lossy which is incompatible with the lossless requirement for FCP.

FCoE is the actual encapsulation of FCP in Ethernet. Along with FCoE there is another protocol called FIP (FCoE Initialization Protocol) which does the initial setup of the connection to the switch including FLOGI.

it_consultant

Thanks for the info. I kept reading the documentation and in order to set up FCOE where the storage system is NOT native FCOE you need a FCF device to bridge the two networks. The VDX 6730 [according to Brocade] is a FCF device but they only provide documentation on setting up FCOE if it is end-to-end FCOE. Not quite as auto-magic as I had hoped. We are long way off since we just bought 16GB F/C.